anb 


ms  ®pon  topics  tn  Cberpbs?  lift 


ILLUSIONS 
AND  DISILLUSIONS 


Touching  upon  Topics 
in  Every   Day  Life 


BY 
EDITH  C.  JOHNSON 


PUBLISHED  BY 

EDITH  C.  JOHNSON 

OKLAHOMA  CITY,  OKLAHOMA 
1920 


COPYRIGHTED,   1920 
BY 

EDITH  C.  JOHNSON 


BECKTOLD 

PRINTING  A  BOOK  MFO.   CO, 
ST.   LOOTS.     U.S.  A. 


TO  THE  MANY  LOYAL  FRIENDS 
AND  READERS  WHOSE  GEN 
EROUS  ENCOURAGEMENT  HAS 
MADE  PUBLICATION  POSSIBLE, 
THIS  BOOK  IS  APPRECIATIVELY 
DEDICATED  BY  THE  AUTHOR. 


AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

The  essays  in  this  book  have  been  selected  from  my 
writings  which  have  appeared  daily  in  the  Oklahoman 
during  the  past  two  years.  For  the  most  part,  I  have 
chosen  the  essays  which  have  brought  me  the  widest 
response  from  my  readers,  those  that  have  impelled 
readers  to  say  to  me,  "I  have  had  the  very  same 
thoughts,  though  I  did  not  put  them  into  so  many 
words". 

In  a  single  sentence  we  have  the  function  of  the 
writer — to  put  other  persons'  ideas,  thoughts  and  aspi 
rations  into  definite,  readable  form.  Writers  have  no 
monopoly  on  thoughts  and  ideas — which  are  the  com 
mon  property  of  mankind.  Many  of  the  most  vital 
thoughts  in  this  volume  have  come  to  me  from  others, 
who  gave  them  out,  consciously  or  unconsciously. 
Thoughts  and  ideas  come  from  everywhere.  Really,  we 
live  in  a  surging  sea  of  thought. 

In  this,  my  first  volume,  I  have  discussed  a  good 
many  subjects  which  perplex  men  and  women  who  are 
much  wiser  than  myself.  My  excuse  for  daring  to  an 
alyze  them  is  that  I  lay  no  claim  to  special  knowledge, 
nor  do  I  boast  of  any  ability  to  offer  the  final  solution. 
I  merely  try  to  talk  things  over,  rather  intimately  with 
my  readers,  and  to  present  my  ideas  in  a  simple, 
straightforward  and  common-sense  way. 

Sometimes,  my  readers  ask  me  how  it  is  that  I  can 
find  so.  much  to  write  about,  how  it  is  that,  barring 
emergencies,  I  can  write  365  days  in  the  year.  If  that 
be  a  triumph  of  energy  and  industry,  it  is  one  that  I 
want  to  share  fairly  with  hundreds  of  friends  and 

5 


AUTHOR'S  FOREWORD 

readers.  One  of  the  most  delightful  aspects  of  the 
work  that  I  am  so  happy  to  be  doing  is  the  great  num 
ber  of  letters  and  messages  and  requests  that  come  to 
me,  suggesting  live  topics,  or  asking  for  a  discussion  of 
some  given  subject.  When  I  first  began  to  write  these 
daily  essays,  I  had  moments  of  terror  when  I  wondered 
how  long  I  could  keep  them  up.  Now,  I  know  that  I 
do  not  have  to  make  any  great  effort  to  keep  this  work 
going.  Men,  women,  their  emotions,  their  perplexities, 
their  ideas,  together  with  the  march  of  events  in  the 
world,  will  keep  the  thing  going  for  me.  And  not  the 
least  of  the  many  charms  this  work  has  for  me  is  the 
occasional  discovery  of  myself.  So  often,  it  happens 
that  we  do  not  know  what  we  think,  how  we  feel  about 
a  subject,  until  we  are  forced  to  think  about  it,  to  mar 
shal  our  ideas  and  put  down  our  thoughts.  Then,  we 
find  that  beneath  the  superficial  or  mortal  conscious 
ness,  there  is  a  deeper  consciousness  which  comes  for 
ward  and  in  the  most  delightfully  obliging  manner 
gives  up  all  kinds  of  ideas  and  impressions  we  did  not 
dream  were  there.  All  the  time,  that  deeper  conscious 
ness  has  been  quietly  thinking,  feeling,  sorting,  arrang 
ing,  and  it  is  no  secret  among  the  guild  of  writers,  that 
it  is  when  they  are  able  to  tap  the  wells  of  that  deeper 
consciousness  they  do  their  best  work.  And  after  all, 
it  is  not  a  personal  consciousness,  but  a  reflection  of 
the  world  consciousness,  which  is  a  very  complex  thing, 
indeed,  something  concerning  which  the  best  of  us  can 
understand  but  little,  but  about  which  all  of  us  con 
stantly  are  trying  to  learn  more. 

E.  C.  J. 


CONTENTS 


Page 

Author 's  Foreword 5 

Introduction 9 

Are  You  Liked  at  Home  ? 11  ' 

Women  Prefer  Plain  Men 14 

Sane  Self-Interest 17 

Human  Shock  Absorbers 21 

Good  Talkers  Can  Be  Made 24 

Salesmanship  for  Wives 27 

Ideal  of  "Pansy  Hill" 30 

Personality  Is  The  Key 33 

Widowers,  Can  They  Love  Again? 36 

Who  Is  The  Greatest  Woman? 39 

Faith  and  Its  Miracles 42 

Appreciation  As  a  Gift 45 

"Dangerous  Age"  In  Men 48 

Uses  of  Amiability 51 

The  Emotional  Temperament 55 

Cult  of  Simplicity    58 

Marriage :  Why  Men  Fail 61 

Marriage :  Why  Women  Fail 65 

"Thank  You"  Pays  Dividends 69 

Recreation  for  Housewives 72 

Pity,  Don't  Condemn  Snobs 75 

Character  is  Power 79 

Woman — Practical  Poet  82 

Modern  Chesterfields 86 

Beauty  of  the  Later  Love 89 

Wit  Versus  Silver  Plate  .  92 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Humor,  The  Saving  Grace 95 

Can  Men  Reform  Wives? 98 

What  is  True  Culture? 102 

Measuring  Woman's  Success 105 

If  You  Could  Live  Again : 109 

Mistaken  Self -Sacrifice  112 

The  Art  of  Growing  Old 115 

A  Fortune  in  Friends 118 

Looking  Up  Into  the  Sky  •. 121 

Roses  and  the  Life  of  Man 125 

What  a  Teacher  Can  Do 128 

Gray  Hairs  and  Opportunity 131 

Business  Women  for  Wives 134 

Men  "Forgetting"  to  Propose 137 

Poetry  in  Life's  Prose 140 

Insignia  of  a  Lady 144 

After  College— What?    147 

The  Cheerful  Husband 150 

Marriage  and  the  Margin  of  Age 153 

Glory  of  the  Dinner  Hour 156 


INTRODUCTION. 


I  recently  took  a  long  dip  in  the  Spectator,  of  Addi- 
son  and  Steele,  to  make  up  my  mind  whether  the  Essays 
are  really  classics  or  only  classics  that  are  dead  and  don 't 
know  it.  This  thing  I  soon  found ;  that  time  after  time  I 
started  upon  a  Spectator  essay,  resolved  to  read  only  a 
part  of  it,  to  get  its  gist  and  apprehend  its  purpose,  and 
every  time  I  read  to  the  end.  This  is  a  pretty  sure  test 
of  the  classic. 

I  have  had  exactly  the  same  experience  in  reading 
Edith  Johnson's  essays  as  they  appeared  in  newspaper 
form.  Scanning  the  paper,  with  meager  time  at  my  dis 
posal,  deeply  interested  in  the  events  of  the  day,  I  would 
say  to  myself, ' ' I  will  skip  Miss  Johnson  this  time".  But 
if  I  read  the  first  paragraph,  I  found  it  necessary  to  go 
on  to  the  end.  I  feel  sure  this  same  experience  must 
have  come  to  thousands  of  her  readers.  She  would  be 
the  last  to  claim  that  this  quality  of  her  writing  estab 
lishes  it  as  classic;  but  it  seems  fair  to  say  that  it  does 
indicate  a  highly  unusual  power  of  interest  and  charm 
in  the  art  of  writing.  R.  L.  S.  said  that  the  first  prin 
ciple  of  novel  writing  is  to  make  every  page  interesting. 
Miss  Johnson  makes  every  paragraph  interesting,  and 
this  is  distinctly  a  greater  achievement  in  the  essay  than 
in  the  novel. 

Miss  Johnson  seems  to  have  no  conscious  style  of  writ 
ing.  I  am  particular  to  use  the  word  "seems".  The 
uncritical  reader  would  probably  say,  if  asked  about  her 
style,  that  she  has  just  a  natural  style.  He  could  not 
pay  a  higher  compliment.  He  is  speaking  better  than  he 
knows.  Every  practiced  writer  has  a  conscious  style, 
and  if  he  succeeds  in  making  it  natural  at  last,  he  has 
arrived  at  that  perfection  of  art  which  conceals  art. 

But  this  quality  of  interestingness  does  not  inhere  in 
style  alone.  Miss  Johnson  stays  very  closely  with  those 
facts  of  life  which  are  of  daily  and  universal  interest; 
and  since  literature  is  the  expression  of  life,  she  is  always 
expressing  life,  always  saying  things  for  the  multitude 
which  the  multitude  cannot  or  does  not  say  for  itself. 

9 


INTRODUCTION 

Thus  it  comes  about  that  she  puts  into  adequate  expres 
sion  the  nebulous  thoughts  of  the  many,  so  that  each  one 
is  moved  to  say,  "I  have  often  thought  just  that".  Yes, 
he  has  often  thought  it,  but  it  has  been  vague  and 
valueless;  now  it  is  fixed  and  permanent. 

Her  writings  constitute,  in  fact,  a  philosophy  of  every 
day  life — in  particular  of  the  every  day  life  of  women. 
She  writes  of  women's  problems  with  remarkable  frank 
ness  and  freedom  and  therefore  does  not  escape  their 
criticism.  But  on  the  whole  the  soundness  of  her  views 
is  recognized,  and  it  is  not  surprising  to  learn  that  when 
a  certain  women's  club  recently  voted  its  opinion  as  to 
those  persons  who  are  entitled  to  mention  among  the 
"Who's  Who"  of  this  state,  Miss  Johnson's  name  won 
the  greatest  applause  of  all.  Perhaps  the  dominant  note 
of  her  championship  of  women  is  the  claim  of  their 
economic  independence  and  the  assertion  of  their  in 
dividual  personality.  But  she  goes  about  it  reasonably. 
She  is  no  man-hater,  raging  at  her  sex's  wrongs.  She 
is  not  even  a  feminist — though,  come  to  think  about  it, 
perhaps  she  is.  It  depends  on  what  you  mean.  If  she 
is,  it  is  with  satisfactory  reservations. 

But  the  woman  question  in  all  its  angles  is  only  one 
phase  of  her  wide-ranging  literary  production.  She 
wrote  on  every  issue  of  the  war,  and  supported  every 
good  activity  connected  with  it,  with  eager  patriotism 
and  convincing  power;  she  writes  with  equal  poise  of 
home-making  and  of  city-building;  she  has  a  very  facile 
pen  indeed  for  criticism  in  art;  her  interviews  with 
celebrities  are  interesting  in  every  line,  for  they  tell 
us  just  what  we  wish  to  know ;  she  appreciates  the  ma 
terial  conquests  of  men,  but  stands  staunchly  for  the 
ideal;  she  writes  of  the  emotional  side  of  life  with  a 
very  rare  insight,  sj-mpathy,  and  power.  It  is  not 
strange,  then,  that  she  is  undoubtedly  the  most  widely 
read  writer  in  the  state  and  that  her  name  is  becoming 
more  and  more  widely  known  beyond  its  limits. 

Every  reader  of  this  volume  should  remember  that  a 
book  of  essays  is  not  to  be  read  at  one  sitting. 

A.  C.  SCOTT. 
10 


ARE  YOU  LIKED  AT  HOME? 

OW  do  you  stand  in  your  own  home?  Are  you 
popular  with  your  own  family,  or  is  your  good 
reputation  confined  to  the  esteem  that  you  win 
from  the  world  outside? 

When  you  go  away  for  a  season,  do  the  polite  farewells 
of  your  relatives  conceal  a  secret  sense  of  relief?  Are 
their  protests  of  regret  well-invented  fictions,  or  do  they 
feel  the  regret  they  express? 

When  you  return,  is  there  a  genuine  expression  of  de 
light  over  your  home-coming  ?i  Do  your  relatives  look 
upon  your  re-appearance  as  the  coming  of  sunshine  into 
the  family  circle,  or  do  they  in  their  desire  to  be  kindly, 
have  to  try  to  make  you  feel  a  welcome  that  is  not  in 
their  hearts? 

It  makes  little  difference  what  a  big  figure  you  cut  in 
the  world,  if  you  cut  a  poor  one  at  home.  You  may  win 
a  national  reputation  for  achievement,  and  still  be  a  fail 
ure  if  those  that  are  nearest  to  you  cannot  award  you  the 
palm  of  success  in  your  home  relations  and  life.  A  man 
may  possess  a  genius  so  extraordinary  as  to  make  him 
an  international  figure.  Yet  if  his  wife  and  children 
do  not  listen  for  the  sound  of  his  voice  eagerly,  he  likely 
will  not  weigh  very  heavily  in  the  scales  of  eternity. 
No  matter  how  popular  a  woman  may  be  in  society,  how 
forceful  in  club  work,  philanthropy  and  politics,  her 
achievements  are  a  negligible  quantity  if  she  is  not  gra 
cious,  gentle  and  lovable  in  her  own  circle;  if  her  pres 
ence  is  not  like  a  benediction  within  the  four  walls  of 
her  home. 

11 


ILLUSIONS  AND   DISILLUSIONS 

When  a  man  is  running  for  office  and  his  own  district, 
whether  it  be  precinct,  ward,  county  or  state,  returns  a 
vote  against  him,  you  may  be  pretty  sure  that  there  is 
something  wrong  with  that  man.  The  home-folk  very 
probably  know  him.  Most  any  of  us,  by  the  exercise  of 
a  little  cleverness  can  achieve  a  certain  degree  of  favor 
and  popularity  among  people  who  know  only  our  surface 
manner  and  character.  But  it  takes  men  and  women 
of  pure  purpose,  fine  disposition  and  sound  character  to 
stand  well  among  those  who  are  in  a  position  to  know 
them  best. 

The  thing  that  really  counts  in  this  life  is  the  estimate 
that  is  put  upon  us  by  the  members  of  our  own  families, 
by  our  associates  in  business  and  the  people  in  our  home 
town. 

When  I  hear  men  and  women  complaining  that  they, 
as  prophets,  are  without  honor  in  their  own  country, 
that  their  talents  and  abilities  are  not  appreciated,  I 
cannot  help  wondering  if  they  are  not  overestimating 
their  own  abilities  and  expecting  deserts  that  do  not 
rightfully  belong  to  them.  If  we  do  anything  to  de 
serve  praise,  we  most  certainly  are  going  to  get  it.  Nor 
do  we  have  to  rush  off  to  the  ends  of  the  world  to  make 
a  reputation  for  our  abilities,  if  we  have  something  that 
is  worth  while.  Look  at  William  Allen  White,  Walt 
Mason  and  Ed  Howe.  They  have  something  the  world 
wanted  and  the  world  went  to  them. 

You  may  go  into  a  strange  country,  and  armed  with 
certain  talents  and  plenty  of  sophistication,  you  can  put 
yourself  over.  But  what  deep  or  lasting  satisfaction 
will  that  bring  you,  if  you  cannot  put  yourself  over  in 
your  own  home? 

12 


What  good  will  it  do  you  to  make  a  fortune  out  of 
your  town,  if  the  people  in  it  do  not  love  and  admire 
you?  The  respect  that  you  win  from  the  world  by  rea 
son  of  your  peculiar  abilities  is  a  pretty  chilly  thing,  if 
it  is  not  accompanied  by  the  love  and  admiration  of  the 
people  who  make  that  success  possible  to  you. 

The  only  real  and  lasting  honor  and  admiration  that 
can  come  to  any  of  us  must  come  from  those  that  stand 
nearest  to  us — the  members  of  our  families,  our  friends, 
our  associates  and  our  townspeople. 

If  you  are  the  prophet  without  honor  in  your  own 
country — don't  blame  the  country — look  into  your  own 
heart. 


13 


WOMEN  PREFER  PLAIN  MEN 

HAT  do  women  most  admire  in  men?  Doctor 
Paola  Mantegazza,  the  celebrated  Italian  an 
thropologist  and  pathologist,  declares,  in 
"The  Book  of  Love",  that  the  three  mascu 
line  qualities  most  admired  by  women  are  strength, 
courage,  and  talent. 

It  is  significant  that  no  writer,  no  philosopher,  puts 
much  faith  in  beauty  as  a  source  of  masculine  attrac 
tiveness.  And  despite  his  contention  that  "all  love 
phenomena  are  based  on  and  dominated  by  aesthetic 
considerations",  Doctor  Mantegazza  admits  that  sheer 
beauty  will  not  render  a  man  charming  to  the  majority 
of  women.  In  fact,  most  women  are  rather  afraid  of 
masculine  pulchritude.  They  hesistate  long  before 
they  will  marry  a  handsome  man  with  the  expectation 
of  lifelong  fidelity. 

This  element  of  fear,  undoubtedly,  has  reconciled  the 
majority  of  women  to  the  rather  prevalent  plainness  in 
men,  despite  the  assertions  of  science  that  their  daughters 
must  inherit  their  good  looks  from  their  fathers,  and  not 
from  them.  For  it  has  been  pretty  well  demonstrated 
that  pretty  girls  have  their  fathers  to  thank  for  their 
prettiness,  and  that  beauty  is  perpetuated  through  the 
male,  not  the  female  line. 

Plain  men,  however,  have  not  suffered  from  unpopular 
ity  and  their  plainness  has  not  been  an  appreciable 
handicap  to  their  success  in  either  business  or  society. 
In  this  respect,  the  sexes  manifest  a  marked  difference. 
A  woman's  loveliness  is  her  greatest  asset.  One  might 

14 


WOMEN    PREFER   PLAIN    MEN 

parody  a  famous  line  in  poetry  to  read,  "Beauty  is  of 
man's  life  a  thing  apart;  'tis  woman's  whole  existence". 

Man's  plainness,  largely  the  result  of  our  hustle,  our 
get-rich-quick  methods,  the  strain  and  stress  of  commer 
cial  competition,  of  too  much  smoking  and  too  much 
indiscriminate  drinking,  all  of  which  have  served  to 
stunt  his  growth  and  enfeeble  his  constitution,  is  gen 
erally  atoned  for  by  intelligence,  good  manners  and 
appearance.  Even  downright  ugliness  is  frequently  re 
deemed  by  an  alert  expression  and  an  air  of  distinction. 
A  stern  jaw  often  suggests  strength  of  will,  firmness  of 
character  and  latent  reserve  powers.  In  small  eyes 
there  may  lurk  the  fire  of  genius,  or  at  least,  the  death 
less  enthusiasm  that  accomplishes  things.  A  wrinkled 
brow  will  give  evidence  of  deep  thought  and  large  pow 
ers  of  concentration.  Good  eyes  will  invariably  atone 
for  rugged  or  irregular  features.  A  short  man  can  hold 
himself  with  an  upright  smartness,  and  a  tall  well-set-up 
figure  will  literally  cover  a  multitude  of  small  physical 
imperfections. 

The  plainest  man  can  make  himself  attractive  by  a 
proper  consideration  for  his  dress.  He  can  show  his  wit 
in  the  choice  of  his  tailor,  and  he  can  select  clothes  that 
will  give  the  impression  of  his  being  at  once  opulent, 
artistic  and  business-like.  Now,  an  orthodox  writer 
would,  at  this  point,  dilate  on  the  hideousness  of  man's 
dress,  its  utter  lack  of  grace  and  want  of  color.  Being 
a  free  lance,  I  will  declare  that  the  average  well-dressed 
man  never  looked  better  than  in  his  well-selected  busi 
ness  or  lounge  suit,  and  the  present  day  military  uni 
form,  designed  for  its  utility,  with  its  olive-drab  color 
as  a  means  of  camouflage,  is  really  a  very  stunning  thing. 

15 


ILLUSIONS  AND   DISILLUSIONS 

It  frequently  happens  that  a  plain  man  will  have  a 
definite  power  of  attraction  for  the  loveliest  of  women. 
It  may  be  that  she  is  attracted  to  her  opposite,  or  it  may 
be  that  she  will  brook  no  rival  near  her  throne.  Then, 
too,  the  trend  of  modern  thought  may  have  something 
to  say  on  the  subject.  The  modern  woman  with  her 
newly-acquired  freedom,  her  recent  invasion  of  man's 
world,  her  ideals  of  strenuous  living,  has  no  use  for  an 
insipid  man,  though  he  may  be  as  handsome  as  Apollo. 
She  can  find  no  place  in  her  affection  for  the  scented  ex 
quisite  or  the  glorified  dandy  that  charmed  his  lady  in 
the  days  of  Watteau.  Rather  would  she  see  him  brown 
and  rough-hewn,  and  serenely  unaware  of  his  lack  of 
grace-  She  knows,  too,  that  many  a  plain  face  and 
form  is  the  outward  shell  of  a  big  soul,  a  keen  brain  and 
a  soaring  ambition.  She  has  more  or  less  scorn  for  the 
"beauty  man". 

If  civilization  and  big  business  had  not  marred  them 
in  the  making,  we  might  have  a  good  many  more  hand 
some,  stalwart  men.  Our  forbears  handed  down  to  us 
a  fairly  rich  legacy  in  the  way  of  health,  strength  and 
physical  perfections.  The  Celts  gave  us  dark  eyes  and 
hair  and  clear,  bright  complexions.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
contributed  blue  eyes,  fair  hair  and  skin  and  a  tremend 
ous  endurance.  We  owe  no  small  debt  to  the  Danish  in 
vaders  for  their  height,  fine  forms  and  splendid  physique. 

"Man  must  make  himself  more  manly  in  order  to  con 
quer  the  love  of  the  daughters  of  Eve,"  says  Doctor 
Mantegazza.  They  will  have  to  be  regular  Napoleons 
and  Caesars  if  they  are  going  to  conquer  the  women  of  a 
future  day. 

16 


SANE  SELF-INTEREST 

0  YOU  take  an  interest  in  yourself  ?  This  is  not 
necessarily  a  foolish  question,  for  the  world 
holds  a  good  many  persons  who  are  not  suffi 
ciently  enterprising  to  take  a  genuine  and 
wholesome  interest  in  themselves.  Barring  the  desire 
to  have  something  to  eat,  a  roof  over  their  heads  and  a 
few  clothes,  they  are  scarcely  more  concerned  about  their 
own  destinies  than  those  of  people  they  do  not  know. 
Being  interested  in  yourself  does  not  infer  either  van 
ity  or  conceit.  It  simply  means  that  you  will  make  the 
best  of  your  environment,  your  talents  and  your  oppor 
tunities.  If  you  are  interested  in  yourself,  you  will  take 
care  to  train  your  mind.  You  will  not  be  content  to  use 
10  per  cent  of  your  capacity.  You  will  try  to  get  a  100 
per  cent  result.  If  you  are  interested  in  yourself,  you 
will  not  permit  yourself  to  go  through  life  and  learn 
nothing  from  your  experiences.  The  purpose  of  experi 
ence  is  to  develop  men  and  women  mentally  and  spirit 
ually.  Some  persons  can  travel  around  the  world  and 
be  none  the  richer  on  their  return.  Others  are  visited 
with  love,  with  sorrow,  with  disappointment,  with  oppor 
tunity,  and  yet  remain  static  year  after  year.  They  do 
not  grow  one  whit  wiser  or  kinder  or  more  sympathetic. 
They  die  with  the  same  stock  of  ideas,  feelings  and 
opinions  that  they  carried  around  with  them  in  their 
youth. 

If  you  are  interested  in  yourself,  you  will  take  care 
of  your  body.  You  will  ascertain  just  what  you  can 
endure,  and  you  will  not  encroach  upon  the  margin  of 
your  health  and  strength.  People  who  are  top-heavy, 

17 


ILLUSIONS   AND  DISILLUSIONS 

that  is  people  who  have  powerful  minds  and  frail  bodies, 
have  to  conserve  their  forces  carefully,  or  one  blue  day 
they  die  at  the  top.  Nor  is  it  sufficient  to  strike  a  safe 
balance  between  wear  and  repair.  For  if  you  are  in 
terested  in  yourself,  you  will  want  to  keep  yourself  not 
only  physically  well,  but  physically  attractive.  You 
will  make  personal  cleanliness  a  part  of  your  religion, 
and  you  would  as  soon  go  without  your  dinner  as  your 
bath.  You  will  not  wear  just  anything  that  strikes  your 
fancy.  You  will  first  ask  yourself  these  questions:  "Is 
it  appropriate?  Is  it  becoming?  Will  it  insure  my 
looking  well-dressed?  I  cannot  expect  people  to  love 
and  admire  me  just  for  my  mind  and  character.  I  must 
be  pleasing  to  the  eye  as  well". 

If  you  are  properly  interested  in  yourself  you  will 
try  to  make  friends  wherever  you  are,  for  much  of  the 
happiness  of  life  is  secured  by  means  of  pleasant  asso 
ciations. 

The  easiest  and  surest  way  of  making  friends  is  to  take 
a  sincere  interest  in  others.  Men  and  women  instinct 
ively  feel  a  friendly  and  unselfish  interest  whenever  they 
come  in  contact  with  it.  If  you  want  friends  you  will 
first  have  to  be  one.  Another  thing — you  will  have  to 
be  cheerful  about  it.  Friendship  is  a  plant  that  loves 
the  sun.  It  does  not  grow  well  under  clouds. 

How  often  we  hear  people  say,  ' '  I  care  for  only  a  few 
friends".  That  is  a  very  mistaken  and  short-sighted 
policy.  We  need  all  the  friends  that  we  can  make.  We 
need  to  have  people  feeling  kindly  toward  us.  We  need 
to  cast  out  love  and  cheer  and  favors  on  many  waters  if 
we  expect  them  to  return  to  us  in  after  days.  The  idea 
that  any  human  being  can  be  so  self-sufficient  as  to  get 

18 


SANE   SELF-INTEREST 

along  without  friends  is  the  extreme  of  folly.  Certain 
rich  men  seem  to  cherish  that  notion.  How  lonely  they 
are  when  misfortune  comes ! 

If  you  are  interested  in  yourself,  you  will  make  up 
your  mind  to  love  your  work.  The  other  day  a  working 
woman  said  to  me :  "I  love  my  work  and  I  grow  younger 
with  it".  Now,  if  I  were  to  tell  you  how  she  makes  her 
living  you  would  probably  say,  "Oh,  I  would  loathe  do 
ing  that ! ' '  for  her  work  is  of  a  very  taxing  and  fatigu 
ing  character.  But,  making  it,  as  she  does,  the  means  by 
which  she  can  radiate  a  bit  of  sunshine  in  her  world 
every  day,  the  means  by  which  she  can  help  and  serve 
others,  she  cannot  help  being  happy  in  that  work.  So 
much  heart  and  mind  and  sweetness  does  she  put  into  it 
that  it  becomes  a  constant  source  of  inspiration  to  her. 

If  you  are  interested  in  yourself,  you  will  try  to  be  as 
happy  as  you  can.  About  nine-tenths  of  all  the  illness 
in  this  world  is  due  to  unhappiness.  A  bitter  hour  acts 
like  a  dose  of  poison.  It  filters  through  every  pore  of 
your  body,  and  it  paralyzes  the  powers  of  the  mind. 

Happiness  is  a  physical  and  mental  cocktail.  A  smile 
takes  the  edge  off  of  care.  A  cheerful  attitude  makes 
the  thing  that  looked  as  if  it  might  become  a  burden  just 
as  ordinary  circumstances  of  life.  One  of  the  greatest 
problems  of  life  is  to  fill  our  days  with  sunshine.  Little 
favors  extended  to  others,  the  passing  word  of  encour 
agement,  unselfish  deeds  done  in  an  open-hearted  man 
ner,  courtesies  scattered  by  the  way,  a  sincere  and  timely 
appreciation  of  the  other  fellow's  efforts,  help  to  make 
us  as  well  as  others  happy.  No  pleasure  can  surpass 
that  of  the  consciousness  of  a  strong  and. generous  char 
acter.  It  is  a  solace  for  one's  darkest  hour. 

19 


ILLUSIONS  AND  DISILLUSIONS 

This  may  sound  paradoxical,  but  it  is  true,  neverthe 
less,  that  if  you  are  not  rightly  interested  in  yourself 
you  cannot  be  genuinely  interested  in  other  people. 
Sane  self-interest  is  a  distinctly  human  quality.  If  you 
are  sufficiently  interested  in  yourself  to  make  the  very 
best  out  of  your  life  and  talents,  you  will  want  others 
to  do  likewise.  No  man  can  actually  lift  himself  with 
out  lifting  others  with  him.  That  is  one  of  the  inexor 
able  laws  of  life. 


20 


HUMAN  SHOCK  ABSORBERS 

SN  'T  she  a  desperately  uncomfortable  person  ? ' ' 
a  woman  remarked  of   one   of   her   friends. 
"No  matter  what  happens  she  worries  about 
it.     Everything  in  life  is  hard  for  her,  not 
because  she  is  more  unfortunate  than  others,  but  because 
she  takes  it  so.    Wouldn't  it  be  a  blessing  to  her  and 
those  about  her  if  she  could  live  more  comfortably  ? ' ' 

Comfortable  people  are  the  shock  absorbers  of  society. 
By  their  good  nature  and  their  philosophical  acceptance 
of  unpleasant  facts  and  events,  they  seem  to  be  able  to 
take  the  jar  out  of  living,  both  for  themselves  and  their 
associates.  They  always  seem  to  be  ready  to  meet  emer 
gencies,  and  not  to  be  greatly  disturbed  by  them.  They 
smile  easily,  though  they  do  not  giggle  or  laugh  con 
tinually. 

How  many  times  you  have  been  at  a  party  where, 
though  the  guests  were  clever  enough,  everybody  ap 
peared  to  be  on  a  strain !  The  atmosphere  had  that  op 
pressive  feeling  that  precedes  a  storm.  All  the  clever 
people  in  the  company  were  working  just  as  hard  as 
they  could  to  maintain  their  reputation  for  cleverness 
and  to  entertain  the  group.  Some  of  them  were  even 
brilliant.  Yet,  between  every  one  of  their  sallies,  a 
deadly  silence  would  fall  over  the  company  and  every 
body  would  be  ill  at  ease. 

Then,  suddenly,  one  of  those  thoroughly  comfortable 
women  would  enter  that  tense  room.  Though  she  did 
not  make  the  slightest  effort  to  be  brilliant,  everybody's 
nerves  relaxed  under  the  influence  of  her  spontaneity. 

21 


ILLUSIONS  AND  DISILLUSIONS 

Her  remarks  probably  were  quite  commonplace.  Yet, 
who  expects  or  wants  one  of  those  soothing,  healing  com 
fortable  persons  to  be  purveyors  of  wit? 

Too  many  persons  believe  that  the  world  can  be  saved 
only  by  strife  and  turmoil;  like,  for  instance,  the 
"reds".  They  cannot  conceive  of  bettering  conditions 
amicably.  They  must  tear  down  the  whole  structure 
and  rebuild  in  their  own  way.  They  want  to  set  every 
body  right  in  a  minute.  They  have  no  conception  of  the 
methods  that  are  used  by  the  comfortable  people  in 
order  to  right  some  of  this  world's  wrongs.  They  do 
not,  like  the  comfortable  people,  know  just  how  far  to  go. 

"You  know  I  have  principles",  said  a  woman  with  a 
militant  air.  So,  indeed,  should  she  have  principles. 
Everybody  should  have  principles.  However,  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  being  too  noisy  and  insistent  about  your 
principles,  particularly  in  the  ordinary  touch-and-go  of 
life.  These  people  who  are  so  constantly  aware  of  their 
principles  are  very  trying  creatures.  Never  are  they 
able  to  see  the  humor  in  their  own  actions.  Nor  are  they 
ever  capable  of  doing  that  eminently  comfortable  thing 
— laugh  at  themselves. 

"I  just  get  up  in  the  morning  and  I  say  to  myself  as 
I  start  to  work ;  '  Here  is  another  beautiful  day '. ' ' 

You  know,  already,  don't  you,  that  she  is  one  of  the 
comfortable  women  who  no  matter  what  happens  is 
ready  to  smile  and  speak  a  kind  word  to  all  human 
creatures,  regardless  of  their  condition  of  life.  If  you 
were  in  her  place,  you  would  probably  think  that  you 
were  having  a  very  hard  time  of  it.  But  she  doesn't 
think  so.  She  does  not  work  merely  to  get  a  living,  but 
in  her  contacts  with  the  public,  to  make  others  happy 

22 


HUMAN   SHOCK  ABSOEBEES 

and  comfortable.  And  you  won't  be  surprised  will  you, 
dearly  beloved,  when  I  tell  you  that  every  year  she  looks 
younger  than  she  looked  the  year  before.  How  such 
women  do  teach  us  the  folly  of  ill-natured  resistance! 
How  their  everyday  lives  are  an  exposition  of  that  good 
old  text:  "Sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof". 

Chronically  uncomfortable  persons  wear  out  the  pa 
tience  and  affection  of  their  friends.  Your  friends  are 
quick  to  give  you  their  help  and  sympathy  when  you 
have  some  real  sorrow  or  difficulty.  The  best  and  most 
devoted  to  them,  however,  cannot  forever  put  up  with 
irritability  and  complaining.  Constant  nagging  will 
wear  out  the  staunchest  friendship,  just  as  it  rends 
asunder  many  a  home. 

When  you  look  at  the  comfortable  people,  you  wonder 
why  more  of  us  do  not  imitate  them,  so  great  are  their 
rewards.  They  may  not  always  make  a  million  or 
achieve  worldwide  fame.  Nevertheless,  they  get  through 
life  with  less  wear  and  tear  on  their  minds  and  their 
bodies.  They  enjoy  more  tranquility  and  happiness  than 
most  of  us.  They  draw  friends  to  them  continually  and 
they  make  everybody  love  them. 


GOOD  TALKERS  CAN  BE  MADE 

HENEVER  I  accept  an  invitation  to  dinner  or 
to  an  evening  party  where  the  company  does 
not  play  cards,  I  find  myself  at  a  painful  loss 
for  something  interesting  to  say",  is  the  bur 
den  of  one  reader's  plaint.  "The  longer  I  remain  silent, 
the  more  terrified  I  am.  Sometimes  I  am  so  uncomfort 
able  that  I  vow  right  then  that  I  never  will  be  guilty  of 
accepting  another  invitation.  Can  you  suggest  how  I 
may  remedy  this  defect  in  myself?" 

There  are  two  classes  of  persons  who  fail  at  conversa 
tion.  One  includes  those  who  suffer  so  keenly  from 
self-consciousness  that  they  are  frightened  at  the  sound 
of  their  own  voices.  The  other  class  comprises  those 
who  can  think  of  nothing  interesting  to  say.  No  remedy 
can  be  prescribed  for  the  first  class  of  sufferers  except 
to  assure  them  that  intelligence,  common  sense  and  de 
termination,  if  exercised  diligently,  will  work  the  miracle 
and  to  reiterate  that  trite  saying  that  if  they  will  think 
more  of  the  pleasure  and  happiness  of  others  and  less 
about  themselves,  they  will  likely  find  their  tongues  and 
get  along  very  well. 

The  ability  to  talk  is  much  like  the  ability  to  write.  If 
you  have  something  to  write,  you  can  find  words  in 
which  to  write  it.,  If  you  have  something  to  say,  you  can 
usually  find  a  way  to  say  it.  For  it  is  having  something 
to  write  or  to  say  that  makes  the  interesting  writer  or 
talker.  You  are  moved  to  comment  upon  the  shallow- 
ness  of  an  acquaintance's  conversation  for  precisely 
the  same  reason  that  you  throw  aside  a  book,  a  magazine 

24 


GOOD   TALKERS    CAN   BE   MADE 

or  newspaper  with  the  remark:  ''There  is  absolutely 
nothing  in  that".  Facility  of  expression  will  not  con 
ceal  poverty  of  thought. 

It  is  a  wise  man  who  is  eager  to  correct  his  deficiency 
as  a  conversationalist  and  who  will  take  the  trouble  to 
effect  the  change,  for  men  and  women  cannot  overesti 
mate  the  advantage  of  being  good  talkers.  A  pleasant 
manner  of  approach  and  the  ability  to  talk  entertain 
ingly  and  sympathetically  will  open  the  door  to  almost 
every  heart.  A  good  talker  is  welcome  in  every  com 
munity.  Hostesses  seek  him  for  their  dinner  tables. 
Men  welcome  him  in  their  clubs.  Wherever  he  goes,  he 
makes  friends  and  he  secures  customers  and  clients. 
Every  man  who  is  successful  owes  something  of  his 
advancement  to  his  ability  to  talk  pleasingly  and  intel 
ligently,  just  as  every  man  who  is  a  failure  must  charge 
up  a  part  of  his  failure  to  his  inability  to  present  his 
case. 

You  may  be  poor  and  you  may  feel  that  you  have  no 
chance  in  life.  You  may  have  others  dependent  upon 
you,  and  for  that  reason,  you  may  not  have  been  able 
to  go  to  school  as  much  as  you  should  have  gone.  Your 
environment  may  be  anything  but  inspiring.  The  people 
about  you  may  be  flippant,  slangy  and  slip-shod  in  their 
speech.  Your  ears  may  be  tortured  with  vulgarisms 
such  as:  "You  bet  your  life",  "iSearch  me",  "Well, 
isn't  that  the  limit?"  "Yes,  I  gave  him  the  once  over 
and  believe  me,  I  don't  think  he  is  any  great  shakes". 
Even  so,  you  may  train  yourself  to  be  a  delightful  talker 
if  in  spite  of  the  tearing-down  influence  of  your  associa 
tions,  you  will  think  carefully  before  you  speak,  if  you 
will  read  and  observe  and  listen  to  every  good  talker 

25 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

you  meet.  If  you  are  sincerely  ambitious,  every  good 
book,  every  well-written  magazine  or  newspaper  article 
will  be  a  help  to  you. 

You  see  men  and  women  who  have  unpleasant  man 
nerisms,  and  a  clumsy  way  of  expressing  themselves,  al 
though  you  know  they  have  had  a  good  education  and 
some  opportunity  to  associate  with  people  of  refinement. 
You  w6nder  how  they  could  have  remained  blunderers 
all  their  lives.  It  is  because  they  are  too  self-satisfied 
to  subject  themselves  to  a  severe  self -analysis,  or  too  lazy 
for  self-discipline.  They  take  themselves  as  they  find 
themselves  and  they  expect  others  to  do  the  same. 

There  is  no  deep  and  dark  mystery  about  being  a  good 
talker.  Anyone  may  cultivate  the  art  of  being  a  good 
conversationalist  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  do  so. 
Success  as  a  talker  is  achieved  by  the  same  methods  as 
every  other  kind  of  success.  Good  talkers  do  not  hap 
pen.  They  are  evolved  by  thought,  observation,  study 
and  persistent  effort.  They  must  have  as  a  background 
a  fair  knowledge  of  the  world's  literature  and  history. 
They  must  keep  well  up  on  current  events.  They  must 
do  enough  independent  thinking  to  have  a  few  ideas  of 
their  own.  Then,  they  must  know  how  to  clothe  their 
knowledge,  their  thoughts  and  ideas  in  an  attractive 
form. 

To  confess  that  you  are  not  and  cannot  be  a  good  con 
versationalist  is  tantamount  to  admitting  that  you  will 
not  pay  the  price. 


SALESMANSHIP  FOR  WIVES 

VERY  one  of  us  has  something  to  sell.  The 
lawyer  sells  his  knowledge  of  the  law,  his 
ability  to  advise  a  client  and  to  represent  him 
in  the  courts.  The  doctor  sells  his  ability  to 
diagnose  an  ailment,  his  knowledge  of  the  best  means  of 
treating  it,  and  perhaps,  his  skill  as  a  surgeon.  The 
architect  sells  his  ability  to  design  a  building  and  over 
see  its  construction.  The  engineer  sells  his  capacity  for 
running  a  locomotive,  the  stenographer  her  skill  as  a 
typist  and  her  ability  to  look  after  the  details  of  her  em 
ploy  er's  business.  The  writer  sells  ideas  and  his  skill 
in  presenting  them.  Everybody  that  is  anybody  stands 
ready  to  dispose  of  his  product,  his  ideas  or  his  service. 
For  this  reason  every  man  and  every  woman  should  be  a 
student  of  salesmanship. 

"What  could  I  do  with  a  knowledge  of  salesmanship?" 
demands  a  wife  who  has  not  grasped  the  idea  that  like 
all  other  workers  she  has  something  to  sell  and  the  more 
skill  she  acquires  in  the  selling,  the  happier  and  more 
successful  she  will  be. 

Every  wife  ought  to  be  a  careful  student  of  salesman 
ship.  And  if  she  would  set  herself  to  this  task,  I  believe 
in  almost  every  instance  it  would  do  away  with  that  all 
too  prevalent  feeling  that  her  work  does  not  amount  to 
anything.  She  would  come  to  understand  that  the  only 
person  whose  work  does  not  amount  to  anything  is  the 
one  whose  work  is  not  well  done.  She  would  also  see 
that  she  is  not  a  "dependent",  that  she  by  her  skilled 
service  absolutely  earns  her  living  and  the  money  she 
has  to  spend. 

27 


ILLUSIONS  AND  DISILLUSIONS 

Do   you   know    the    four    steps   in   making    a    sale? 

They  are  to  arouse  interest,  to  create  desire,  to  make 
the  sale,  and  to  insure  satisfaction. 

The  steps  taken  in  consummating  a  marriage  are  iden 
tical  with  those  in  effecting  a  sale.  Woman's  first  step 
is  to  arouse  the  interest  of  an  eligible  man.  The  next  is 
to  create  in  him  a  desire  to  marry  her.  Marriage  is  the 
third  step  and  satisfaction  and  happiness  in  married  life 
is  the  fourth  and  last. 

Suppose  that  our  heroine  is  safely  married.  What 
does  she  sell  her  husband  ?  First,  her  personal  devotion 
to  him,  her  ability  to  encourage  his  efforts  in  his  busi 
ness  or  profession,  and  her  power  to  inspire  him.  Her 
second  service  is  her  ability  to  manage  a  home  with  effi 
ciency,  and  to  make  it  attractive  to  him.  The  third  of 
her  marketable  wares  is  her  capacity  for  bringing  up  a 
family.  Practically  every  man  who  marries  expects  that 
he  shall  receive  in  return  for  his  love,  his  support  and 
protection  of  his  wife  these  three  aforementioned  things. 
The  woman  who  makes  a  failure  of  her  marriage,  sup 
posing  that  she  has  married  the  right  kind  of  man,  is 
the  woman  who  does  not  comprehend  or  practice  these 
fundamental  principles  of  salesmanship. 

Marriage,  like  any  other  kind  of  business,  is  the 
science  of  service.  This  science  a  wife  can  apply  through 
her  power  to  create  satisfaction  and  happiness  in  her 
husband.  Usually,  we  can  tell  at  a  glance  the  wife  who 
has  this  power  to  serve.  She  manifests  it  in  her  appear 
ance  and  her  manner,  in  the  skill  and  ease  with  which  she 
runs  her  home,  in  her  husband's  appearance  of  well- 
being,  in  the  good  health,  good  conduct  and  the  progress 
of  her  children. 

28 


SALESMANSHIP  FOB  WIVES 

You  have  noticed,  of  course,  that  the  successful  sales 
man  markets  his  goods  with  the  same  customers  year 
after  year,  and  that  seldom  does  he  lose  one.  Though 
his  rivals  may  offer  merchandise  just  as  good,  he  knows 
how  to  keep  his  customers  in  the  attitude  of  wanting  his 
own  particular  line.  So  it  is  with  the  wife  who  is  a 
good  saleswoman.  She  keeps  her  husband  wanting  her, 
depending  upon  her,  loving  her,  feeling  that  he  could 
not  live  without  her,  that  her  loss  would  be  irreparable. 
No  other  woman  has  any  temptation  for  him.  She  is 
the  only  woman  in  the  world  so  far  as  he  is  concerned. 
The  same  principle  applies  to  her  children.  She  con 
vinces  them  and  keeps  them  convinced  that  she  is  the 
best,  brightest,  cleverest,  most  sympathetic  and  under 
standing  mother  that  ever  lived. 

Every  woman  who  anticipates  marriage,  every  woman 
who  is  married,  should  have  this  motto  graven  on  her 
heart,  "She  profits  most  who  serves  best",  for  that  is 
the  epitome  of  salesmanship. 


20 


IDEAL  OP  "PANSY  HILL" 

HAVE  just  said  to  my  wife  that  we  will  start 
another  'Pansy  Hill'."  These  interesting 
words  were  uttered  by  a  young  professional 
man  who  with  his  wife  had  just  gone  into  a 
city  to  make  it  their  future  home.  Like  a  great  many 
other  young  couples,  they  had  not  yet  made  their  mil 
lions  and  they  could  not  indulge  their  rather  aesthetic 
taste  in  the  selection  of  a  home.  Their  little  pile  would 
not  buy  the  latest  style  of  architecture,  hard  wood  floors, 
white  enamel  and  grounds  that  had  been  done  by  a  land 
scape  gardener.  But,  loving  beautiful  things  as  they  did, 
they  would  content  themselves  with  an  unpretentious 
cottage  and  small  grounds  which  they  would  convert 
into  a  Pansy  Hill. 

You  never  have  heard  of  Pansy  Hill,  have  you  ?  Well, 
it  is  a  little  log  house  perched  on  a  knoll  and  overlook 
ing  the  surrounding  country,  near  Harriman,  Tennes 
see.  In  the  house  lives  an  elderly  couple,  who  by 
thought  and  labor  have  made  their  modest  cottage  one 
of  the  show  places  of  Tennessee.  The  place  is  a  riot 
of  bloom,  pansies  predominating.  Men  and  women  from 
everywhere  drive  out  to  see  it,  and  it  is  the  envy  of  not 
a  few  persons  who  make  their  homes  in  mansions. 

Everybody  cannot  be  rich,  but  everybody  can  create 
beauty  in  his  surroundings.  The  crucial  test  of  true 
gentility  is  not  wealth  but  poverty.  The  real  aristocrats 
of  this  world  keep  a  hold  on  the  sweet  courtesies  of  life, 
and  strive  to  create  beauty  around  them  even  in  time 
of  adversity.  When  they  have  to  accept  a  condition  that 

30 


IDEAL   OP       PANSY    HILL" 

is  not  in  harmony  with  their  taste  and  ideas,  they  take 
it  and  make  the  best  of  it.  They  are  gloriously  poor 
while  some  other  folk  are  hideously  wealthy,  and  they 
smile  with  gentle  indulgence  upon  the  latter  and  bitter 
ness  does  not  enter  their  souls. 

When  people  can  take  an  old  and  unattractive  house, 
and  make  a  Pansy  Hill  out  of  it,  and  when  they  remain 
kind  and  dignified  and  gracious  through  the  hard  daily 
test  of  contriving  to  make  both  ends  meet,  they  are  the 
real  thing.  The  possession  of  money  shields  a  great 
many  men  and  women  from  having  to  take  this  test. 
Life  is  made  so  easy  for  them  that  they  have  no  oppor 
tunity  to  find  out  just  how  they  would  react  if  they 
were  subjected  to  the  acid  test  of  insufficient  means. 

Among  the  things  that  make  the  cities  and  towns  of 
a  new  country  so  attractive  are  the  energy  and  the 
initiative  of  the  people  who  are  making  the  prairie  blos 
som  like  a  rose.  The  love  of  beauty  and  cleverness  are 
made  to  take  the  place  of  much  money,  and  some  of  the 
most  charming  places  are  the  smallest  and  humblest  of 
the  town.  The  Pansy  Hill  idea,  buttressed  by  fine  char 
acter  and  good  taste,  is  working  many  a  miracle,  and 
as  you  ride  through  the  streets,  you  feel  this  keenly  and 
you  are  grateful  that  it  is  so. 

I  like  to  think  that  the  idea  of  good  taste  and  char 
acter  is  growing  in  our  nation,  and  that  the  refinements 
of  life  count  for  a  great  deal  more  than  the  loose  conduct 
and  extravagance  which  have  become  too  popular  among 
us  within  the  past  few  years.  Customs  may  change, 
new  laws  may  be  passed,  fashions  may  come  and  go,  but 
our  adjustment  to  everyday  life  always  will  remain  our 
own  particular  and  personal  business.  And  if  we  are  not 

31 


ILLUSIONS   AND  DISILLUSIONS 

able  to  realize  ourselves  in  the  places  that  we  are,  we 
will  be  a  discordant  people  and  our  minds  will  be  those 
of  pettish  children,  who  are  continually  crying  for  things 
they  want  that  are  out  of  their  reach. 

A  Pansy  Hill  is  bound  to  be  ten  times  more  interest 
ing  than  any  mansion  planned  by  a  high-priced  archi 
tect  and  furnished  by  a  high-priced  decorator,  for  the 
personalities  of  its  owners  enter  into  it  and  become  a 
part  of  it,  in  a  way  that  no  scientifically  planned  and 
made-to-order  structure  ever  can  be.  And  often  there 
is  more  of  the  real  home  spirit  in  places  that  have  been 
planned  with  love  and  beautified  by  sacrifice  than  in 
some  of  the  million-dollar  places  which  adorn  our  cities 
and  towns. 

Some  of  our  citizens  will  laugh  at  my  Pansy  Hill  phil 
osophy  and  call  me  "sentimental".  I  shall  not  contra 
dict  them,  for  I  also  believe  that  a  great  many  sensible 
women  and  brainy  business  men  will  agree  with  me 
about  it.  Am  I  wrong? 


32 


PERSONALITY  IS  THE  KEY 

|LBERT  HUBBARD  had  one  pet  expression— it 
was   "personality   plus".     In   fact,   Hubbard 
was  the  first  man  in  this  country  persistently 
to  preach  the  power  of  personality.     His  "Lit 
tle  Journeys ' '  and  his  ' '  Philistine ' '  were  brimming  over 
with  his  observations  on  the  influence  wielded  by  per 
sonal  force  and  charm. 

What  is  personality? 

Nobody  in  this  world  has  been  able  to  take  its  meas 
ure,  or  to  lay  down  all  the  rules  necessary  for  its  culti 
vation.  You  can't  draw  a  diagram  of  personality,  nor 
chart  the  limitless  sea  of  its  influence. 

We  do  know  this — that  every  genuinely  superior  man 
or  woman  is  bound  to  be  a  personality.  But  God  never 
duplicates.  Each  is  different  from  the  other.  So,  if  you 
can  actually  decide  what  constitutes  personality  in  one 
man,  that  will  not  do  you  much  good  in  determining 
what  it  is  or  how  it  ought  to  operate  in  another. 

Men  are  like  God — they  create  in  their  own  image. 

If  you  conceive  a  great  project,  it  is  as  Emerson  says, 
the  lengthened  shadow  of  yourself. 

If  you  paint  a  portrait,  you  are  bound  to  paint  two, 
one  of  yourself  and  a  second  of  the  sitter. 

If  you  conceive  a  hero  and  set  out  to  write  his  story, 
you  will  unconsciously  tell  your  own  while  you  are 
relating  his. 

It  makes  little  difference  what  you  do,  you  will  photo 
graph  yourself  finally  on  the  negative  of  your  career. 

33 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

There  was  a  time  when  any  honest,  upright,  sober, 
industrious  citizen  could  make  his  way  in  this  world  with 
a  fair  and  dependable  degree  of  success. 

That  time  has  passed — and  added  to  a  half  dozen 
virtues  and  abilities,  sufficient  to  furnish  forth  a  very 
fair  career,  there  must  be  today  at  least  a  half  dozen 
more — and  the  greatest  of  this  number  is  that  of  per 
sonality. 

For  every  personality  that  is  born,  there  are  ten  that 
are  made — hewed  out  of  sheer  intelligence,  persistent 
effort,  keen  observation  and  patient  practice. 

When  we  speak  of  the  self-made  man,  we  really  mean 
a  self-made  personality. 

Many  of  us  follow  the  slovenly  habit  of  taking  it  for 
granted  that  we  are  just  about  all  right,  and  that  we  will 
get  through  somehow  as  we  are.  This  is  the  habit  that 
accounts  for  mediocrity — it  is  the  habit  to  which  effi 
ciency  experts  attribute  90  per  cent  of  all  failures,  the 
one  that  explains  why  the  majority  are  only  25  per  cent 
as  efficient  as  they  might  be. 

Educators  are  just  beginning  to  realize  that  it  is  as 
necessary  to  instruct  their  pupils  in  the  cultivation  of 
efficient  personality  as  it  is  to  teach  them  a,  b  and  c. 

For  personality,  or  in  other  words,  the  power  of  per 
suasion,  is  that  which  determines  the  character  and 
color  of  our  lives  almost  from  the  cradle. 

It  is  the  strongest  and  most  attractive  personality  in 
every  family  that  receives  the  greatest  favors,  that  is 
given  the  most  advantages. 

As  we  grow  up,  personality  begins  to  take  effect  in  the 
school  room.  Through  its  influence  and  persuasion,  we 
get  on  with  our  teachers,  and  we  induce  our  playmates 

34 


PERSONALITY    IS   THE    KEY 

to  respect,  not  despise  us.  It  is  personality  that  per 
suades  men  to  seek  out  women  and  women  to  marry 
men.  Personality  is  a  large  factor  in  the  earning  of  our 
wages.  Through  personality  we  get  desirable  persons  to 
accept  our  hospitality  as  well  as  to  offer  us  theirs.  It 
persuades  our  friends  and  neighbors  to  yield  us  consid 
eration  and  social  pleasure.  Through  personality  we 
secure  the  best  loyalty  and  the  most  valuable  service. 

The  man  of  personality  binds  other  men  to  him  with 
hoops  of  steel.  He  fires  them  with  his  own  enthusiasm 
and  fills  them  with  his  purpose. 

Personality,  more  than  any  one  other  force,  has  the 
power  to  purchase  all  the  good  things  of  life.  "Wealth 
is  not  amassed,  social  position  is  not  attained,  honor  is 
not  due,  power  does  not  flow,  pleasure  is  not  secured,  and 
the  happiness  of  a  harmonious  life  is  not  realized  in  its 
fullness,  except  through  the  persuasion  of  personal  force 
and  charm. 

For  personality  is  the  key  which  opens  every  door. 

Yet,  how  few  of  us  take  the  trouble  to  forge  that  in 
strument  ! 


35 


WIDOWERS:  CAN  THEY  LOVE  AGAIN? 

AN  a  woman  who  marries  a  widower  hope  to 
have  real  love  from  him",  asks  a  reader,  "or 
has  he  only  the  warmed  over  kind  to  offer"? 
That  depends  entirely  upon  the  individual. 
A  very  few  men  can  love  only  once  in  their  lives.  The 
greater  number,  however,  can  love  as  long  as  life  lasts. 

Every  woman  must  be  her  own  judge  of  how  well  a 
man  loves  her.  Nobody  else  can  tell  her  that.  There 
is  no  reason,  however,  why  she  should  have  misgivings 
because  her  suitor  is  a  widower.  The  second  wife  is 
usually  better  loved  and  better  treated  than  the  first. 
Where  the  first  wife  wore  serge,  the  second  wears  silk. 
Though  the  first  was  expected  to  "do  her  own  work" 
uncomplainingly,  the  second  wife  must  be  served.  While 
street  cars  are  often  good  enough  for  first  wives,  their 
successors  usually  have  automobiles.  The  differential  is 
not  necessarily  due  to  the  increased  prosperity  of  the 
husband.  The  widower  has  discovered  that  it  is  possible 
for  a  man  to  lose  a  good  wife.  The  husband  seldom 
thinks  of  that. 

I  once  heard  a  very  complacent  wife  say  that  the 
woman  who  marries  a  widower  must  not  expect  that  he 
shall  really  love  her;  when  she  marries  him  she  must 
reconcile  herself  to  the  remains  of  his  heart. 

This  type  of  women  will  not  only  spread  this  propa 
ganda  among  other  women — she  will  do  her  best  to  con 
vince  her  husband,  and  all  his  friends,  as  well,  being  the 
kind  of  woman  who  not  only  demands  all  of  a  man's 
life  while  she  is  living,  but  all  of  his  thoughts  after  she 
is  dead. 

This  reminds  me  of  the  story  of  a  widower  who  mar- 
36 


WIDOWERS:    CAN   THEY   LOVE  AGAIN? 

ried  a  girl  and  took  her  to  his  home.  Before  the  bride 
had  removed  her  hat,  the  husband  had  the  termerity  to 
hand  her  a  letter  written  by  his  first  wife  to  be  turned 
over  to  his  second  and  read  by  her  at  the  outset  of  her 
married  life.  The  writer  expressed  the  generous  hope 
that  her  successor  would  make  her  husband  very  happy. 
There  was  not  a  definitely  impolite  or  unkind  line  in  it ; 
yet  it  was  so  constructed  that  every  word  conveyed  a 
sting.  Can  you  imagine  a  more  subtle  revenge  for  a 
dying  wife  to  take  upon  the  unsuspecting  woman  who 
might  some  day  take  her  place? 

One  of  the  severest  trials  that  confronts  a  woman 
marrying  a  widower  and  one  that  she  must  keep  locked 
up  in  the  innermost  recesses  of  her  soul  is  having  to 
look  daily  into  the  eyes  of  little  children  that  reflect 
neither  her  husband 's  najture  nor  her  own.  It  is  a  noble, 
high-minded  and  unselfish  woman  who  makes  up  her 
mind  and  holds  to  her  decision  that  the  children  of  a 
former  wife  shall  be  treated  as  tenderly  as  if  they  were 
her  own,  that  she  never  will  be  revenged  upon  the  dead 
by  striking  at  the  living  descendant  of  a  former  wife.  I 
am  convinced  that  the  chief  reason  why  most  step 
mothers  are  so  hard  upon  their  stepchildren  is  their  im 
pulse  to  take  revenge  upon  the  woman  who  has  gone  be 
fore.  If  it  be  true  that  the  spirits  of  the  dead  are  aware 
of  the  thoughts,  the  purposes  and  acts  of  the  living,  what 
anguish,  what  sufferings  must  be  those  of  a  mother,  who 
with  the  greater  understanding  of  the  immortal,  can  see 
her  children  being  punished  for  her  sake !  It  is  also  a 
very  severe  tax  upon  a  woman's  generosity  to  take  up 
her  abode  in  a  house  that  has  been  arranged  by  an 
other  woman's  hands.  It  may  be  that  her  courage  will 
be  tested  by  the  portrait  of  the  first  Mrs.  A.  hanging 

37 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

upon  the  wall.  If  she  ventures  into  any  of  the  darker 
corners  of  attic  or  store-room  she  may  find  the  first  wife 's 
wedding  veil,  perhaps  a  picture  of  husband  and  wife 
taken  on  the  day  of  their  wedding,  the  baby  pictures  of 
their  children,  and  most  trying  of  all,  momentoes  and 
letters  of  their  early  love. 

The  middle-aged  widower  who  woos  and  wins  a 
younger  woman  is  tremendously  proud  of  himself.  His 
success  is  a  form  of  self-vindication  that  every  man  past 
his  first  youth  craves.  It  is  tantamount  to  his  saying  to 
the  world  of  his  acquaintances,  "You  see  that  even 
though  I  am  not  as  young  as  I  once  was,  I  am  still  a  very 
attractive  man.  This  younger  woman  has  fallen  in  love 
with  me  which  proves  that  I  still  am  something  of  a 
romantic  figure". 

Wives,  that  is  some  of  them,  have  an  aggravating  way 
of  trying  to  convince  their  husbands  that  if  they  should 
be  made  widowers,  they  might  be  accepted  for  their 
money,  their  good  dispositions,  or  other  practical  and 
material  reasons,  though  they  never  again  will  be  mar 
ried  for  love.  While  no  man  ever  wholly  accepts  this 
theory,  he  often  is  tormented  with  doubt  and  uncertainty 
until,  after  a  decent  period  of  mourning,  he  can  once 
more  enter  the  lists  and  tilt  a  lance  in  the  arena  of  love. 

In  the  last  analysis  the  man's  temperament  is  the 
deciding  factor.  There  are  men  like  Mark  Lennan  in 
Galworthy's  "The  Dark  Flower"  who  are  capable  of 
developing  a  high-class  attack  of  the  grand  passion 
several  times  in  their  lives.  It  is  this  type  of  man,  made 
widower,  who  after  his  deepest  wounds  of  grief  and  loss 
are  healed,  will  fall  desperately  in  love  and  who  will  lead 
the  object  of  his  fervid,  if  not  very  youthful  affection, 
up  the  aisle  of  the  church. 

8S 


WHO  IS  THE  GREATEST  WOMAN? 

HO  is  the  greatest  woman  in  the  world?  Some 
body  answers,  Sarah  Bernhardt,  that  gallant 
woman  of  France,  for  whom  age  does  not  exist, 
nor  fear,  nor  sorrow. 

Another  will  say  Jane  Addams,  who  has  created  a 
whole  world  of  new  ideas  through  Hull  House.  There 
might  be  a  thousand  votes  cast  in  a  "greatest  woman" 
contest  for  the  unsullied  spirit  of  Maude  Adams,  who 
can  lift  you  out  of  your  workaday  self  into  a  wonderful 
inner  world  of  romance;  for  Edith  "Wharton,  that  su 
premely  great  writing  genius;  for  Amelita  Galli-Curci, 
who  has  astonished  the  world  with  her  nightingale  voice. 
Yet  who  can  say  that  any  of  these  women  are  actually 
greater  than  thousands  of  other  women  of  great  deeds, 
great  talents  and  great  character  who  live  and  die  un 
known  and  unsung? 

If  there  is  one  woman  entitled  to  decoration  for  brave 
service  on  the  battlefield  of  life  it  is  the  kind,  good,  in 
telligent  and  dutiful  woman  about  whom  no  one  outside 
a  very  small  circle  ever  hears.  She  may  not  have  great 
beauty  or  genius  to  her  credit,  yet  she  may  have  some 
thing  just  as  good. 

This  ordinary  woman — that  is  what  I  will  call  her,  be 
cause  she  is  found  everywhere — does  not  write  a  book, 
sing  in  opera  nor  is  she  decorated  for  distinguished 
service. 

Her  life  history  is  singularly  uneventful,  not  to  her, 
of  course,  but  to  the  outside  world.  Once  upon  a  time 
this  ordinary  woman  had  all  the  freshness  and  beauty  of 

39 


ILLUSIONS  AND  DISILLUSIONS 

youth.  She  dreamed  her  dreams  like  other  women,  and 
part  of  those  dreams  did  come  true.  That  is  to  say,  a 
certain  gallant  young  person  (we  will  call  him  the 
prince)  told  her  the  most  fascinating  story  in  the  world. 
He  told  her  how  she,  just  an  ordinary  maiden,  was  to 
be  a  princess ;  how  she  should  be  shielded  from  want  and 
care,  and  how  she  would  be  rapturously  loved  all  the 
days  of  her  life. 

The  prospect  was  very  enchanting.  Without  hesita 
tion  she  put  her  hand  in  that  of  the  prince,  and  they 
started  out  to  see  and  learn  life  together.  And  life 
was  very  beautiful  for  awhile,  until  the  prince  forgot  to 
kiss  her  as  he  came  and  went.  The  need  of  money  de 
pressed  their  spirits.  He  never  took  her  out  to  dinner 
or  a  play — they  could  not  afford  that. 

With  none  of  those  delightful,  inspiring  experiences 
which  punctuate  the  days  of  the  world's  famous  women 
the  ordinary  woman  went  right  on  uncomplainingly  from 
week  to  week,  from  month  to  month,  from  year  to  year, 
sewing  and  mending  and  cooking  and  cleaning.  She 
did  love  pretty  things,  for  somehow  all  women  with 
souls  do  love  them.  But  the  children  were  growing  up 
and  must  be  educated.  She  must  work  a  little  harder 
and  deny  herself  a  little  more.  "Anything  for  their 
sweet  sakes",  she  always  said  with  a  smile,  for  they  were 
young  and  they  must  have  their  chance. 

Sometimes  she  would  look  at  her  work-worn  hands  and 
suppress  a  sigh  when  she  recalled  the  rapturous  love  of 
the  prince,  now  a  sober  and  grizzled  man.  Though  her 
step  had  lost  its  buoyancy,  he  was  not  so  ready  to  guide 
her  over  the  sligtest  roughness  in  the  road.  She  would 
have  loved  that  little  lift  more  than  ever.  Not  that  she 

40 


WHO  IS  THE  GREATEST   WOMAN? 

really  felt  the  need  of  it,  for,  despite  her  frail  physique, 
she  seemed  with  the  passing  years  to  have  gathered  a 
wonderful  strength. 

Oh,  the  world  is  so  full  of  these  ordinary  women! 
Their  lives  are  brightened  with  so  few  gaieties.  They 
are  strangers  to  those  iridescent  pleasures  that  color  the 
lives  of  their  sister-women  who  have  beauty,  wealth, 
fame  and  success.  There  is  nothing  so  essentially 
feminine  as  the  longing  for  admiration.  Those  who  re 
ceive  it  flourish  like  a  bay  tree,  and  those  who  are  de 
prived  of  their  woman's  birthright  suffer  a  certain  in 
evitable  starvation.  It  is  a  slow  starvation,  but  it  is 
sure. 

The  ordinary,  good,  dutiful  woman  who  deserves  the 
most  usually  receives  the  fewest  flowers.  Her  devoted 
service  is  taken  for  granted.  It  is  nothing  more  than  a 
matter  of  course.  "We  know  that  the  machinery  will 
come  to  a  stop  if  she  is  not  there  to  keep  it  going.  But 
who  considers  that  until  she  is  gone?  Because  she  does 
keep  it  going,  whether  or  not  her  effort  is  remarked ;  be 
cause  she  labors  incessantly  without  hope  of  praise  or 
much  reward,  she  is  the  one  real  heroine. 

All  great  women  actresses,  artists,  writers,  scientists 
and  reformers  notwithstanding,  the  ordinary,  good,  kind, 
dutiful  woman  is,  when  all's  said  and  done,  the  great 
est  woman  in  the  world. 


41 


FAITH  AND  ITS  MIRACLES 

|ER  head  drooped  wearily  and  her  voice  had  a 
hollow  sound  as  she  said, ' '  I  have  lost  faith  in 
everything  and  everybody."     One  whom  she 
had  trusted  implicitly  had  defrauded  her  of 
her  hard-earned  and  pitifully  small  gains. 

At  the  moment  she  thought  she  had  lost  faith,  but  she 
had  not.  She  simply  could  not  have  meant  what  she 
said.  To  live  without  faith  is  an  impossibility.  It 
would  mean  to  go  insane  or  to  die. 

Little  do  we  realize  it,  but  the  majority  of  our  acts 
are  based  on  faith. 

You  get  up  in  the  morning  with  faith  that  your  wife 
will  have  breakfast  on  the  table  in  plenty  of  time  for 
you  to  eat  it  and  get  down  to  your  work. 

You  board  the  street  car  with  faith  that  the  motor- 
man  and  conductor  will  take  you  safely  through  the 
streets  to  your  store,  factory  or  office,  or  if  you  happen 
to  own  the  good  things  that  money  can  buy,  you  step 
into  your  motor  car.  You  make  the  trip  with  faith  that 
your  chauffeur  will  drive  you  through  the  streets  and 
land  you  safely  at  your  destination. 

You  go  into  your  place  of  business  with  faith  in  your 
associates  to  "carry  on"  with  you,  with  faith  in  your 
employer,  if  you  belong  to  the  salaried  or  wage-earn 
ing  class.  You  work  six  days  without  a  cent  of  pay,  for 
you  have  perfect  faith  in  your  employer's  ability  to 
pay  you  on  the  seventh  and  in  his  integrity.  You  have 
faith  in  your  ability  to  accomplish  the  task  that  is  set 
before  you,  and  you  ought  to  have  faith  enough  to.  do 
that  which  you  never  have  attempted  before. 

42 


FAITH    AND   ITS    MIRACLES 

Nobody  ever  has  defined  faith  so  accurately  as  Paul, 
who  in  writing  his  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  said :  ''Faith 
is  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for,  the  evidence  of 
things  not  seen" 

The  best  part  of  life  is  made  up  of  things  that  we 
hope  for,  of  desiring  things  which  we  cannot  see. 

"Would  we  ever  have  had  a  single  oil  well  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  steadfast  faith  of  certain  men? 

No  man  ever  saw  the  oil  down  in  the  earth  until  he 
drilled  and  brought  it  to  the  surface.  No  man  ever 
knew  it  was  there.  When  a  man  drills  deep  and  strikes 
the  pay  sand,  and  the  oil  gushes  forth  and  blackens  the 
derrick,  that,  indeed,  is  ' '  the  substance  of  things  hoped 
for";  it  is  "the  evidence  of  things  not  seen". 

Who  must  have  more  faith  than  the  farmer  ?  Would 
he  plant  a  crop  unless  he  had  faith  in  the  orderly  course 
of  the  seasons,  in  the  rains  of  spring,  in  the  ripening  suns 
of  summer,  in  the  harvest  of  fruit  and  grain  as  a  reward 
for  his  labors  ?  For  months  the  farmer  has  no  income,  no 
visible  reward  for  his  strenuous  labors,  but  he  works  on 
almost  from  sun  to  sun,  with  faith  that  he  will  reap  as 
he  sowed. 

What  woman  would  walk  to  the  altar,  by  that  one  act 
putting  her  whole  future  life  in  the  hands  of  the  man  she 
loves,  if  she  did  not  have  infinite  faith  in  him?  What 
man  would  assume  the  responsibility  of  caring  for  one 
woman  for  a  life-time,  if  when  he  asked  her  to  marry 
him,  he  had  not  perfect  faith  in  her? 

Every  invention  which  has  contributed  to  the  world's 
progress  and  advancement  is  the  materialization  of  faith. 
Unbounded  faith  built  the  first  steamboat.  It  made  the 
telephone  and  telegraph  possible.  It  constructed  the 

43 


ILLUSIONS  AND   DISILLUSIONS 

first  automobile  and  it  gave  us  the  flying-machine.  Of 
course,  faith  without  effort  or  performance,  conies  to 
nothing.  Men  and  women  who  fold  their  hands  and  sit 
down  to  wait,  like  old  Wilkins  Micawber,  for  something 
"to  turn  up"  are  doomed  to  disappointment.  You  can 
not  conjure  things  into  being  done  or  happening.  Faith 
has  no  affinity  for  the  lazy  man. 

Faith  is  force.  Faith  is  power.  Active  faith  makes 
possible  the  impossible.  For  those  who  both  labor  and 
believe,  it  works  miracles  every  day. 


44 


APPRECIATION  AS  A  GIFT 

HAT  does  your  birthday  mean  to  you?  Is  it  a 
season  for  receiving  or  giving?  Does  it  re 
mind  you  to  be  thankful  for  the  gift  of  life,  so 
thankful  that  you  want  to  make  it  a  time  for 
rejoicing,  or  do  you  feel  like  forgetting  that  there  is 
such  a  day  in  the  year's  calendar? 

Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  woman  who  makes  her  birth 
day  a  day  for  giving,  rather  than  receiving? 

There  is  such  an  one  in  the  world.  For  many  years 
she  has  observed  a  custom  of  spending  the  greater  part 
of  the  day,  although  she  is  a  busy  mother,  giving  happi 
ness  to  others  by  writing  letters  to  oldtime  friends  and 
near  relatives.  She  makes  a  point  of  recalling  in  these 
letters  happy  memories,  of  telling  the  recipients  of  the 
beautiful  thoughts  she  has  had  of  them.  Here  is  a  para 
graph  taken  from  one  of  these  letters,  written  by  her  to  a 
much-loved  aunt: 

"My  mind  is  flooded  with  sweet  memories  of  all  the 
years.  Distinctly  tinging  the  waves  of  this  gentle  tide, 
adding  warmth  and  color  and  all  things  lovely,  are  my 
thoughts  of  you.  I  remember  you  as  a  happy  school 
girl  with  wonderful  braids  of  hair.  I  remember  you 
grown  older,  casting  shy  glances  at  the  boys,  and  buy 
ing  your  first  pair  of  kid  gloves — do  you  remember  that? 
I  remember  you  in  the  grace  and  beauty  of  your  young 
womanhood,  I  remember  you  in  the  old  fashioned 
ivory  and  gold  parlor;  remember  you  at  the  piano  and 
also  at  the  organ — it  seemed  wonderful  to  me  that  you 
should  have  both.  Most  of  all  I  remember  you  on  in- 

45 


ILLUSIONS    AND   DISILLUSIONS 

numerable  occasions  when  you  passed  good  things  to  eat 
at  our  children's  gatherings.  I  remember  when  you 
came  running  down  the  steps  to  meet  us  when  we  came 
to  you  on  your  wedding  day  and  how  you  looked  then, 
rosy-cheeked,  so  full  of  life  and  so  daintily  clothed.  Do 
you  recall  the  apron  you  wore?  It  was  sheer  white  or 
gandie,  prettily  ruffled,  the  ruffles  featherstitched  with 
gay  zephyr,  as  was  the  fashion  just  then.  I  remember 
you  down  through  all  the  years,  always  constant  and 
true,  always  my  ideal  of  perfect  womanhood.  You  have 
never  guessed  the  hundredth  part  of  what  you  have  been 
to  me,  I  am  sure. ' ' 

Imagine  the  happiness  that  must  have  come  to  the 
aunt  who  received  this  exquisite  letter,  penned  by  a  niece 
who  wrote  to  express  her  gratitude  for  the  hours  they 
had  spent  together.  How  she  must  have  glowed  as  she 
read  those  pages  of  charming  appreciation.  Yet,  how 
few  of  us  ever  experience  the  joy  of  receiving  such  a 
letter,  or  better  still,  of  writing  one.  Yet,  the  very 
poorest  among  us  have  both  friends  and  kinfolk  who  have 
exercised  a  gracious  influence  over  our  lives,  and  to 
whom  we  might  very  well  express  the  gratitude  that 
we  ought  to  feel.  How  happy  they  might  be  made  by  a 
letter  of  delicate  appreciation!  Of  course  we  all  think 
these  beautiful  things  about  our  friends  and  relatives. 
Too  often,  however,  we  keep  such  thoughts  bottled  up 
within  us  instead  of  pouring  them  out,  a  libation  to 
friendship  or  affection.  Some  of  us  believe  ourselves  to 
be  too  busy  to  write  our  thoughts,  and  many  of  us  are 
too  reticent  to  express  what  we  feel. 

Nothing  gives  more  pleasure  to  men  and  women  who 
are  growing  old  than  to  have  the  successes  and  triumphs 

46 


APPRECIATION    AS   A   GIFT. 

of  the  past  recalled  to  them.  A  man  who  has  passed  the 
zenith  of  his  powers  and  activities  delights  in  ^ing  re 
minded  of  his  past  achievements,  and  a  woman  adores 
being  told  how  lovely  she  looked  in  a  certain  costume 
or  how  charming  she  was  on  a  particular  occasion  when 
she  was  the  center  of  interest. 

What  a  beautiful  plan  of  happiness  for  the  older  peo 
ple  it  would  be  if  we  would  celebrate  our  birthdays,  or 
some  other  holiday,  for  that  matter,  by  telling  our  most 
beloved  friends  and  relatives  what  they  have  meant  to 
us.  I  know  a  son  who  on  his  birthday  writes  to  his 
mother  in  just  that  way.  He  tells  her  how  thankful  he 
is  to  be  living.  So  it  is  with  all  her  children.  Is  it  sur 
prising  that  she  keeps  health  and  vigor  and  vivacity  at 
almost  four  score  years? 

Love  is  the  greatest  of  all  beauty  secrets  and  the  most 
perfect  panacea  for  ill-health.  When  you  see  men, 
women  and  children  with  a  blighted  look  in  their  faces, 
nine  times  out  of  ten  it  is  because  they  are  leading  love 
less  lives — that  is,  they  neither  give  love  nor  receive  it. 

You  sometimes  wonder  why  it  is  that  actors  and 
actresses,  great  singers,  men  and  women  famous  for  their 
achievements  keep  their  youth  so  long.  It  is  because 
they  continually  are  inspired  by  praise  and  apprecia 
tion.  Does  not  this  simple  fact  contain  an  every-day-in- 
the-year  birthday  hint  for  each  one  of  us? 


47 


"DANGEROUS  AQE"  IN  MEN 

OME  years  ago  a  Danish  woman,  Karin  Mich- 
aelis,  wrote  a  volume  of  confessions  that  was 
as  startlingly  intimate  and  personal  as  the  con 
fessions  of  Saint  Augustin,  Benvenuto  Cellini 
or  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau.  The  vogue  for  this  book, 
"The  Dangerous  Age"  was  phenomenal.  It  was  trans 
lated  into  a  score  of  languages  and  a  hundred  editions 
of  it  were  sold.  The  world  was  amazed  by  the  writer's 
revelations.  She  declared  that  the  most  dangerous 
epoch  of  a  women's  life  was  that  which  lies  between  35 
and  40.  It  was  then,  said  Karin  Michaelis,  that  woman 
is  most  sorely  tempted.  It  is  then  that  she  is  most  likely 
to  become  the  dupe  of  her  emotions.  The  perils  of  youth, 
she  told  us,  were  as  nothing  compared  with  those  of 
middle  age. 

A  few  months  after  the  book  was  published,  the  phase, 
"dangerous  age"  became  a  byword.  Middle-aged  fem 
inine  emotions  were  coldly  laid  on  the  dissecting  table 
and  they  were  quite  as  ruthlessly  analyzed.  Strangely 
enough,  nobody  in  all  these  years  has  guessed  that  man, 
too,  has  his  dangerous  age.  Sometimes  it  comes  upon 
him  as  early  as  40.  Sometimes  it  arrives  as  late  as  55. 
However  it  may  time  its  arrival,  its  advent  is  after  he 
has  passed  years  of  struggle  and  when  he  begins  to  real 
ize  commercial  or  professional  success.  With  his  sons  go 
ing  into  business,  his  daughters  married,  or  off  to  col 
lege  and  his  wife  absorbed  in  society,  clubs,  charity  or 
suffrage,  he  begins  to  sit  back  and  take  his  ease.  Then, 
it  is  that  the  old  spirit  of  adventure  begins  to  assert 
itself,  and  he  revolts  against  the  routine  that  he  has 
faithfully  followed  for  many  years.  He  sees  that  his 

48 


"DANGEROUS  AGE"  IN  MEN 

wife  has  sought  and  seemingly  has  found  release  and  re 
lief  from  the  routine  of  household  responsibility  in  a 
variety  of  outside  interests.  In  his  growing  restless 
ness  he  wonders  what  pleasures  and  opportunities  life 
may  hold  for  him  in  these,  his  riper  years.  One  day,  he 
is  surprised  to  discover  that  youthful  beauty  has  a  new 
poignant  charm  for  him,  and  that  he  is  strangely  eager 
to  revive  the  stirring  emotions  of  his  youth.  Of  course, 
he  loves  his  home  and  his  wife  as  much,  perhaps  better 
than  he  ever  did.  Yet,  he  suspects  that  he  may  not  have 
had  his  share  of  pleasure,  and  he  recalls  with  a  good 
deal  of  satisfaction  how  as  a  young  man,  he  patiently 
bowed  his  head  under  the  yoke  of  struggle,  privation 
and  industry.  Does  not  his  youthful  sacrifices  to  duty 
entitle  him  to  a  certain  compensation  in  his  later  years  ? 

The  woman  who  reaches  middle  age  only  to  discover 
a  great  and  aching  void  in  her  life  is  a  touching  and 
familiar  figure.  The  ninety-and-nine  among  these 
women  find  surcease  from  their  restlessness  in  club  life, 
society,  philanthropy  and  more  recently,  in  politics.  It 
is  only  the  one  who  forgets  her  obligation  to  her  family, 
her  position  in  society,  her  influence  for  good  as  a 
woman,  and  who  ventures  forth  on  the  primrose  path. 

When  a  man  arrives  at  the  dangerous  age  it  is  harder 
for  him  who  has  not  so  many  restraining  influences 
thrown  around  him,  not  to  break  down  the  barriers  and 
go  forth  and  loot  the  world. 

When  men  marry  in  their  early  twenties  or  thirties, 
so  many  tender  things  tie  them  to  their  homes,  their 
love  of  their  little  and  helpless  children,  the  delight  of 
seeing  those  children  grow,  their  eagerness  to  provide 
for  them  handsomely,  their  devotion  to  their  still  youth- 

49 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

fully  charming  wives.  But,  in  middle  age  when  those 
same  children  have  gone  away  to  school  or  have  married, 
when  their  ideals  have  paled  perceptibly,  when  their 
wives,  beloved  though  they  are,  no  longer  hold  for  them 
a  romantic  interest,  temptations  that  they  once  spurned 
angrily,  begin  to  appear  in  an  alluring  light. 

It  is  a  peculiar  peril  that  besets  men  at  the  zenith  of 
their  careers.  With  leisure  and  wealth  and  opportunity, 
one  sees  them  renewing  their  interest  in  society  and  ac 
quiring  an  unwonted  fastidiousness  in  dress.  They  will 
not  admit  it  as  freely  as  women,  but  the  approach  of  age 
is  to  them  quite  as  fearsome  a  thing.  There  are  hours 
when  life  is  to  them  as  a  gray  symphony,  and  they  ask, 
"What  can  the  future  hold  for  me?" 

But,  the  very  next  moment,  the  most  disenchanted  of 
men  will  assure  himself  that  he  never  felt  better,  was 
never  younger.  It  is  in  middle  life,  he  reminds  himself, 
that  men  write  their  greatest  books,  their  sweetest  songs 
and  their  finest  poems.  It  is  in  middle  life  that  men  ex 
press  themselves  in  great  commercial  enterprises,  that 
they  make  their  best  laws,  devise  their  most  wonderful 
inventions  and  achieve  their  largest  liberties.  Then, 
why  should  they  not  long  for  youth's  splendid  visions? 
Why  should  not  the  fog-bank  be  made  glorious  for  them 
by  the  moonlight,  even  as  it  was  for  Romeo? 

And  so  they  pass  into  middle  life,  or  the  dangerous 
age,  tortured  by  that  now-or-never  prospect.  Most  of 
them  get  through  it  safely.  And  the  others  ?  They  grasp 
the  cup  of  golden  elixir  that  is  to  make  all  life  glorious. 
For  a  time  it  sets  their  pulses  throbbing.  It  seems  to 
restore  youth's  unjaded  freshness  of  sensation.  Then, 
one  day  the  cup  cloys,  and  its  bitter-sweet  contents  turn 
to  ashes  on  their  lips. 

50 


USES  OF  AMIABILITY 

OOKING  through  a  table  of  contents  in  a  book 
written  to  help  men  and  women  who  aspire  to 
successful  living,  I  find  no  less  than  seventy  sub  • 
jects  exhaustively  treated,  such  as  "The  Man 
and  the  Opportunity",  "Concentrated  Energy",  "What 
a  Good  Appearance  Will  Do",  "A  Fortune  in  Good 
Manners",  "The  Self  Improvement  Habit",  and  so  on, 
ad  infinitum.  Not  a  word  does  the  author  say  about  a 
good  disposition  and  what  an  important  factor  it  is  in 
the  making  of  a  happy  and  successful  life. 

It  seems  to  me  that  we  do  not  lay  enough  stress  upon 
the  importance  of  cultivating  a  good  disposition,  nor 
do  we  always  appreciate  what  it  means  in  our  homes,  in 
business,  or  in  social  life.  I  have  heard  men  and  women 
speak  slightingly  of  a  good  disposition,  as  if  any  fool 
could  have  one,  as  if  the  fine  quality  of  amiability  be 
longed  to  simpletons  and  weaklings.  Nothing  could  be 
a  greater  fallacy.  With  all  the  irritations  and  troubles 
and  disappointments  that  comes  to  us  in  the  course  of 
our  careers,  it  requires  character  to  keep  a  sunny, 
amiable  disposition,  and  strength  of  purpose  and  self- 
control.  Any  fool  can  lose  his  temper  at  slight  provoca 
tion.  Any  clay-footed  mortal  can  pout  and  have  a  fit 
of  sulks.  Any  congenitally  weak  creature  can  fret  and 
scold  and  live  in  a  perpetual  state  of  ill-humor.  But 
"he  that  is  slow  to  anger  is  better  than  the  mighty; 
and  he  that  ruleth  his  spirit  than  he  that  taketh  a  city ' '. 

One  of  the  greatest  of  the  underlying  causes  of  child 
delinquency  is  a  bad  disposition  in  the  home.  Chil- 

51 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

dren  who  are  reared  in  homes  where  the  atmosphere  is 
charged  with  anger,  where  the  parents  continually  are 
hurling  ugly  epithets  at  each  other,  where  there  is  fight 
ing  and  quarreling  and  back-biting  and  bickering,  have 
not  the  shadow  of  a  chance  to  grow  up  with  good  dis 
positions.  With  an  example  of  quarrelsomeness  always 
before  them,  with  irritability  always  in  the  air,  they  nat 
urally  assume  that  such  is  the  normal  condition  of  fam 
ily  existence,  and  they  grow  up,  following  in  the  foot 
steps  of  their  parents,  perhaps  to  establish  homes  of 
their  own.  Through  them  the  quarrelsome  spirit  often 
is  perpetuated  from  generation  to  generation,  until  one, 
better  and  wiser  than  the  others,  strikes  out  in  a  saner 
and  better  way. 

You  wonder  why  so  many  young  people  who  have 
comfortable  homes  are  so  eager  to  be  "  going ' ',  why  they 
never  are  content  to  stay  at  home  longer  than  it  is  neces 
sary  to  eat  and  sleep.  A  good  many  of  those  restless 
young  people  are  driven  away  by  sullenness  and  quar 
reling.  They  cannot  endure  the  angry  looks  that  are  ex 
changed  by  their  parents,  or  the  sharp  words  that  pass 
between  the  woman  they  call  "Mother"  and  the  man 
they  call  "Father".  Home  becomes  a  horror  to  them. 
No  wonder  they  foregather  in  the  dance-hall.  No  won 
der  they  go  joy-riding  and  wander  around  until  after 
midnight,  when  they  can  hope  to  go  home  and  find  the 
house  still.  It  is  perfectly  natural  that  they  should 
make  their  escape  as  soon  and  as  often  as  possible,  and 
that  they  should  spend  as  much  time  as  possible  away 
from  the  place  they  call  home,  but  which  is  no  home, 
at  all.  Many  of  the  wretched  mistakes  that  are  being 
made  by  the  younger  generation  are  directly  traceable 

52 


USES   OP   AMIABILITY 

to  the  hideous  dispositions  of  parents  who  have  driven 
their  children  into  the  street,  and  many  a  criminal  in 
our  penitentiaries  is  the  inevitable  product  of  homes 
that  were  fairly  torn  asunder  by  quarreling  during  the 
formative  years  of  their  lives. 

One  of  the  infallible  indications  of  refinement  is  a 
good  disposition  and  one  of  the  plainest  marks  of  "com 
monness"  is  the  habit  of  quarreling  and  sharp  speak 
ing,  of  nagging  and  complaining  and  fault-finding.  To 
cultivated  minds,  a  bad  disposition  is  an  unfailing 
symptom  of  vulgarity.  Did  you  ever  notice  how  "com 
mon"  people  speak  to  those  they  consider  their  inferiors? 
Did  you  ever  listen  while  the  vulgar  newly-rich  give 
their  orders  in  Pullman  cars,  cafes  or  hotel  dining 
rooms?  Did  you  ever  observe  how  the  "common" 
mother  speaks  to  her  children,  how  the  "common"  man 
addresses  his  wife?  Did  you  ever  notice  on  the  con 
trary  how  men  and  women  of  cultivated  natures  and 
good  dispositions  speak  writh  the  utmost  politeness  to 
their  children,  to  their  servants  and  to  such  other  per 
sons  whose  social  status  may  not  be  quite  as  high  as  their 
own? 

The  charm  of  a  home  where  the  heads  of  the  family 
have  amiable  dispositions  is  unfailing,  and  children 
reared  in  such  an  atmosphere  go  out  into  the  world,  their 
battle  half  won.  Men  and  women  who  rule  their  own 
spirits  are  ready  to  meet  all  classes  of  people  and  all 
conditions  in  life.  They  are  prepared  for  emergencies, 
and  unlike  those  of  unruly  tempers,  who  go  to  pieces  at 
the  slightest  provocation,  they  overcome  a  thousand  ob 
stacles  and  they  disarm  their  adversaries  before  the 
latter  know  what  has  been  done. 

53 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

We  think  a  great  deal  about  cultivating  our  minds, 
and  we  spend  years  in  the  development  of  a  certain  tal 
ent  we  may  have.  But,  how  many  of  us  think  enough 
about  cultivating  our  dispositions?  How  many  women 
give  serious  and  systematic  thought  to  the  training  of 
their  natures?  A  good  many — yes,  but  not  enough. 
How  many  men  make  a  point  of  always  speaking  kindly 
and  amiably  and  politely  to  their  wives,  of  keeping  be 
fore  their  children  the  model  of  a  good  disposition  ?  We 
wish  there  were  more  than  there  are. 

A  fine  disposition  protects  one  from  a  great  deal  of 
unpleasantness.  It  raises  a  sort  of  friendly  barrier  be 
tween  you  and  some  other  person 's  irritability.  It  wards 
off  many  a  sharp  word  and  stinging  sally.  Irritable  peo 
ple  often  are  ashamed  to  "show  themselves"  before  finer 
natures,  and  the  soft  answer  turns  away  wrath. 


54 


THE  EMOTIONAL  TEMPERAMENT 

HAT  the  emotional  temperament  is  a  danger 
ous  temperament,  that  it  is  responsible  for 
most  of  the  disasters  from  which  the  human 
race  has  suffered",  that  emotional  persons  are 
by  nature  untruthful,  that  they  are  cowards  and  can 
not  bear  pain,  that  being  creatures  of  impulse,  they  are 
generally  blunderers,  is  the  startling  assertion  made  by 
an  English  physician,  writing  in  the  London  Hospital. 
These  emotional  persons  are  more  numerous  than  they 
used  to  be,  says  the  doctor,  a  fact  that  does  not  augur 
well,  he  believes,  for  the  future  of  the  human  race. 

How  this  writer  must  feel  the  burden  of  his  mortality ! 
How  slowly  must  his  heart  beat!  How  cold,  how  slug 
gishly  must  his  blood  run!  How  bleak  must  be  his 
laughter,  if,  indeed,  he  can  laugh  at  all !  How  cramped 
must  be  his  existence,  how  narrow  his  vision !  Surely 
no  man  who  happens  to  read  this  indictment  of  the  emo 
tional  temperament  will  be  depressed  by  it,  for  the 
physician  who  must  be  a  humdrum  creature,  is  psycho 
logically  incorrect. 

"What  are  the  phenomena  of  the  mind?  Are  they  not 
cognition,  emotion  and  volition,  or  thought,  feeling  and 
will  ?  Do  not  the  emotions  comprise  feelings  of  restraint 
as  well  as  freedom  ?  Do  they  not  include  wonder,  terror, 
love,  hate,  self-complacency,  the  sense  of  power,  love  of 
knowledge,  the  artistic  feelings,  the  moral  sense  and  a 
score  of  others  too  numerous  for  mention  here?  What 
incomplete  and  uninteresting  creatures  would  we  be  if 
our  only  mental  functions  were  cognition  and  volition. 
We  would  be  dry  as  dust. 

55 


ILLUSIONS  AND   DISILLUSIONS 

Nothing  worth  while  was  ever  accomplished  in  this 
world  without  the  stimulus  of  emotion.  Emotional  feel 
ing  of  a  high  order  has  been  the  basis  of  all  philanthropic 
enterprise  just  as  that  of  a  base  order  inspired  the 
Spanish  inquisition.  All  artists,  writers,  musicians,  in 
ventors  and  orators  are  emotional.  Poetry  is  a  beautiful 
and  rhythmical  way  of  expressing  emotion. 

All  great  men  and  women  are  highly  emotional,  how 
ever  self -controlled  they  may  be.  In  fact,  it  is  only  the 
fool  or  the  mentally  defective  who  permits  his  emotions 
to  run  away  with  him. 

The  English  like  to  assume  that  they  are  an  unemo 
tional  people.  They  are,  it  is  true,  a  reticent  people,  and 
restrained.  If,  indeed,  they  were  unemotional,  they 
could  not  have  produced  century  after  century  much  of 
the  world's  greatest  literature. 

To  assert  that  emotional  people  are  by  nature  un 
truthful  is  to  be  guilty  of  an  absurdity.  It  takes  an 
emotional  person,  not  only  to  see  and  understand  things, 
but  to  express  them  truly.  As  for  saying  that  the  emo 
tional  man  is  a  coward — what  about  those  magnificent 
young  warriors  of  ours,  those  young  enthusiasts  who 
scorned  trenches  and  trench  fighting,  who  going  into  the 
open,  swept  everything  before  them,  a  singing,  laugh 
ing,  whistling  horde,  and  carried  away  by  valorous  emo 
tion,  plunged  on  until  they  brought  the  Huns  to  their 
knees  ? 

The  world  would  be  standing  today  just  where  it  stood 
after  the  creation,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  power  of 
emotion.  What  is  achievement  unless  it  be  emotion 
translated  into  fact?  "Trust  your  emotions",  says 
Emerson.  "Leave  your  theory  as  Joseph  did  his  coat 

56 


THE   EMOTIONAL   TEMPERAMENT 

in  the  hands  of  the  harlot,  and  flee".  And  he  goes  on  to 
warn  us  that  a  foolish  consistency  is  the  "hobgoblin  of 
little  minds",  and  he  tells  us  that  with  consistency  a 
great  soul  can  have  nothing  to  do. 

It  is  easy  to  believe  that  the  English  conmentator  on 
human  emotions  has  stifled  all  of  his.  If  one  could 
know  him  intimately,  I  suspect  one  would  find  him  to 
be  one  of  those  lugubrious  persons  who  thinks  life  a 
poor  thing,  at  best.  One  would  likely  discover,  too,  that 
he  was  almost  insensible  to  pleasure,  that  his  standard 
of  morals  was  utilitarian,  that  he  considered  feeling  a 
proper  thing  for  blame,  never  for  praise. 

Emotion  keeps  the  world  on  the  move.  It  is  the  life 
of  the  soul.  Allowed  to  run  riot,  and  without  the  guid 
ance  of  the  will,  it  can  ruin  either  an  individual  or  a 
nation.  Russia  is  an  example  of  emotional  chaos,  just 
as  was  the  French  revolution.  But  properly  controlled 
and  directed,  emotion  builds  temples.  It  invents  the 
wireless  and  the  airplane.  It  writes  all  the  greatest 
books  and  poems.  It  composes  the  divinest  music,  and 
it  wins  the  mightiest  battles.  Emotion  can  do  one  of  two 
things  to  a  man — make  him  a  fool  or  a  god. 


57 


CULT  OF  SIMPLICITY 

UEEN  MARY,  we  read  lately,  issued  an  edict, 
abolishing  the  heavy,  ponderous  court  costume 
which  has  held  the  socially  elect  in  sartorial 
bondage  for  many  generations  past.  No  more 
will  damsels  and  dowagers,  presented  to  Her  Majesty, 
be  compelled  to  drag  after  them  yards  upon  yards  of 
heavy  trains  and  walk  backward  into  their  treacherous 
folds.  No  longer  will  their  coiffures  be  burdened  with 
plumes.  What  a  shock  this  setting  aside  of  a  time- 
honored  precedent  may  be  to  the  shade  of  Queen  Victoria 
who,  during  her  reign  would  not  relax  a  ceremonial  even 
to  the  crossing  of  a  T  or  the  dotting  of  an  I,  we  can  only 
imagine,  for  when  the  late  monarch  once  made  a  law  it 
was  to  be  for  yesterday,  today  and  forever,  and  nobody 
ever  dreamed  of  a  change. 

Throughout  the  civilized  world  Queen  Mary  will  be 
applauded  for  her  decision  in  favor  of  greater  simplicity. 
In  fact,  simplicity  is  the  keynote  struck  by  aristocracy 
everywhere.  Ostentation  is  taken  to  be  a  sign  of  vul 
garity,  the  display  of  the  newly  rich. 

The.  orgy  of  gorgeous  dressing,  semi-nudity  and  extra 
vagant  display  of  the  past  few  years  has  caused  a  re 
action  in  favor  of  all  things  that  are  beautiful  in  their 
simplicity. 

In  my  childhood  it  was  a  distinction  to  wear  dia 
monds.  It  is  no  distinction  today.  Diamonds  are  now 
being  worn  so  commonly  and  by  so  many  ignorant  and 
vulgar  persons  that  they  have  lost  much  of  their  charm. 
Instead  of  being  reserved  for  wear  upon  ceremonial  or, 

58 


CULT   OF    SIMPLICITY 

at  least,  semi-ceremonial  occasions,  you  see  them  dis 
played  indiscriminately  in  the  morning  and  on  the 
plainest  of  gowns.  It  is  no  uncommon  sight  to  see  a 
diamond  and  platinum  bar-pin  five  inches  long,  set  with 
thousands  of  dollars  worth  of  precious  stones  adorning 
the  plainest  of  serge  frocks. 

In  this  day,  it  seems  that  the  only  way  to  be  con 
spicuous  is  to  be  inconspicuous,  and  the  truest  way  to 
be  elegant  is  to  be  simple  almost  to  excess.  Therefore, 
you  see  men  and  women  of  good  breeding  and  position 
avoiding  the  very  things  that  people  who  have  neither, 
must  have  at  any  cost. 

The  words  and  the  acts  of  certain  men  and  women 
who  have  lately  acquired  money  are  adding  much  to  the 
gaiety  of  nations,  while  at  the  same  time  they  are  causing 
a  powerful  revulsion  of  feeling  against  all  forms  of  os 
tentation  and  display. 

When  the  census  taker  approached  a  certain  woman 
and  going  through  the  usual  formalities,  asked,  ''what 
is  your  occupation?"  the  woman,  drawing  herself  up 
with  a  great  show  of  indignation,  replied,  "Why,  we 
belong  to  the  idle  rich ! ' '  Idleness  and  riches  affording 
her  as  they  did  an  entirely  new  set  of  experiences,  she 
was  very  eager  to  have  it  known  that  she  did  not  belong 
to  the  class  that  toils  and  spins  that  it  may  eat. 

"The  art  of  art,  the  glory  of  expression  and  the  sun 
shine  of  the  light  of  letters  is  simplicity,"  Walt  Whit 
man  tells  us  in  his  preface  to  "Leaves  of  Grass."  It  is 
a  commonplace  with  us  that  the  greatest  persons  always 
are  the  simplest,  that  true  worth  feels  under  no  necessity 
to  call  attention  to  itself.  It  is  the  shallow  person  who 
always  is  trying  to  impress  you  with  his  superiority. 

59 


ILLUSIONS  AND  DISILLUSIONS 

"You  shall  stand  by  my  side  and  look  in  the  mirror 
with  me ' ' — is  the  very  essence  of  simplicity.  All  heroic 
figures  walk  at  their  ease  and  without  strut  or  flourish. 
Their  only  pride  is  the  measureless  pride  of  the  soul. 

You  enter  a  house  and  you  wonder  why  it  is  so  won 
derfully  pleasing  to  you.  That  is  because  of  its  simplic 
ity.  You  look  at  a  woman  and  you  exclaim,  "what  an 
exquisite  toilette!"  The  secret  of  it?  Simplicity,  again. 

We  are  beginning  to  see  all  over  the  world  a  new  trend 
toward  simplicity.  This  was  predicted  generally  as  a 
reaction  from  the  war.  Now  we  know  that  the  war  was 
only  a  secondary  cause  of  this  growing  love  for  things 
that  are  real  and  simple,  the  primary  cause  being  the 
revolt  of  the  best  people  against  the  absurdities  of  the 
nouveau  riches,  who  dressed  up  in  marvelous  grandeur, 
have  no  place  to  go. 


60 


MARRIAGE:  WHY  MEN  FAIL 

OME  time  ago,  a  judge  in  the  superior  court  of 
Chicago  handed  in  his  resignation,  saying  that 
he  was  "sick    and    tired    of    hearing    divorce 
cases"  and  adding  the  dismal  note  that  "mar 
riage  does  not  mean  anything  anymore". 

This  remark  must  have  been  made  in  a  mood  of  pro 
found  pessimism,  for  marriage  means  just  as  much  as  it 
ever  did.  It  means  love  and  home  and  children  and 
companionship,  however  frequently  parties  to  the  mar 
riage  contract  may  fail  ignominiously.  And  for  the 
very  reason  that  marriage,  as  an  institution,  means  the 
deepest  and  most  beautiful  things  in  this  life,  everybody 
is  intensely  interested  in  marriage,  why  in  the  present 
it  so  often  is  a  failure,  and  how  it  may  be  made  a  suc 
cess.  For  the  very  reason  that  the  world  loves  love  and 
the  lover,  the  world  finds  in  marriage,  an  inexhaustible 
source  of  discussion  and  speculation.  This  discussion, 
I  believe  to  be  one  of  the  healthiest  and  most  encouraging 
signs  of  the  times.  For,  as  we  discover  the  obscurer 
causes  for  marriage  failing  of  its  best  purposes,  we 
should  see  our  way  to  making  it  a  much  happier  and 
more  satisfactory  human  institution  than  it  ever  has 
been  in  the  past. 

First  of  the  subtler  causes  of  failure  in  marriage  on 
the  part  of  man  is  selfishness.  Because  he  is  man,  the 
superior  sex,  everybody  must  bow  to  his  desires,  whether 
they  be  good  or  bad.  Such  a  man  usually  has  had  a 
foolish  mother,  a  woman  who  has  believed  that  nothing 
in  the  world  was  good  enough  for  her  little  tin  god  of  a 

61 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

son.  Naturally  enough,  he  grows  up  with  the  idea  of 
exploiting  women,  first  lights  of  love,  then  a  wife.  This 
type  of  man  always  can  be  detected  by  a  glance  at  his 
wife  who  invariably  is  a  cowed  creature,  lack-luster, 
dispirited  and  old  long  before  her  time.  In  former  days 
women  of  broken  hearts  and  broken  bodies  went  down  to 
their  graves  for  their  selfish  spouses.  Now,  they  get  a 
divorce. 

Second  in  importance  is  the  money  question.  It  is  a 
very  phlegmatic  and  obtuse  woman  who  is  not  sensitive 
over  the  division  of  money.  Too  many  families  have  no 
definite  money  policy.  There  is  no  regular  allowance  for 
household  expenses,  no  sum  set  aside  for  the  wife 's 
private  purse.  Instead  of  the  husband  and  wife  going 
over  their  accounts  the  first  of  each  month  in  an  amicable 
and  business-like  manner,  and  planning  what  extra  ex 
penses  may  be  undertaken  in  the  month  to  come,  there 
often  is  blaming  and  scolding  on  the  part  of  the  husband 
and  tears  and  recriminations  from  the  wife.  As  an 
aftermath,  the  wife  broods  over  her  hated  economic  de 
pendence  and  the  tyranny  of  male  man.  If  the  husband 
would  take  his  wife  into  his  confidence,  provide  for  her 
certain  spending  privileges,  then  make  her  feel  that  his 
money  was  her  money,  to  be  properly  used  and  sanely 
conserved,  there  would  be  far  fewer  discontented,  restive 
women,  and  fewer  cases  in  the  divorce  courts. 

All  women  are  hungry  for  love.  Too  often  the  rap 
tures  of  the  honeymoon  speedily  deteriorate  into  the 
stereotyped  kiss  of  farewell  and  greeting,  and  after  a 
few  months,  a  few  years,  the  wife  stretches  out  the  arms 
of  her  affection,  only  to  draw  them  back  empty  again. 
Her  husband  is  too  busy,  too  much  occupied  to  make  love 

62 


MARRIAGE:    WHY    MEN   FAIL 

to  her.  Then  sometimes,  I  suspect,  it  may  be  the  very 
creature  comforts  of  marriage  that  kill  romance  in  the 
husband's  heart. 

One  of  the  commonest  mistakes  of  husbands  is  their 
forgetfulness  of  good  manners.  It  is  marital  laziness 
rather  than  ignorance  or  innate  selfishness  which  makes 
a  man  neglectful  of  little  courtesies  when  he  is  once 
comfortably  settled  in  married  life.  It  is  incomprehen 
sible  to  a  sensitive  woman  that  a  man  who  never  forgets 
to  be  courteous  to  her  in  the  street  may  be  by  no  means 
considerate  in  private  life.  She  cannot  understand  why 
marriage  should  change  a  man's  outward  attitude  of 
chivalry.  He  always  may  be  patient  and  gracious  when 
she  asks  a  favor  of  him.  But  what  a  woman  longs  to 
have  done  for  her  is  the  thing  for  which  she  has  not 
specially  asked.  It  would  be  very  sweet  to  her  if  occa 
sionally  he  would  offer  to  carry  the  baby  up  to  bed,  if 
he  would  open  the  door  for  her,  or  place  a  comfortable 
chair  for  her,  or  adjust  the  curtain  to  shade  her  eyes. 

We  are  always  reading  in  advice-to-wives  columns  that 
a  wife  always  must  be  neat  and  attractive  in  her  hus 
band's  presence,  that  her  dress  must  be  immaculate  and 
that  she  must  be  as  fragrant  as  a  rose.  Why  is  it  that  so 
little  is  said  about  a  husband's  physical  attractiveness? 
Is  it  of  no  importance  to  his  wife  ?  Many  heartbreaking 
letters  have  come  to  me  from  wives  who  abhorred  their 
husband's  slovenliness,  who  were  hurt  and  humiliated 
beyond  expression  by  their  husband's  aversion  for  reg 
ular  and  frequent  ablutions  and  the  latter 's  willingness 
to  wear  dirty,  spotted,  unpressed  clothes.  It  is  just  as 
distasteful  to  a  fastidious  woman  to  view  an  unshaven, 
unkempt  husband  in  a  dingy  bathrobe  and  run-do  wn-at- 

63 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

the  heel  slippers  as  it  is  to  a  husband  to  look  at  his  wife 
with  a  neglected  skin,  hair  done  up  in  curlers  and  wear 
ing  a  faded  kimono  that  properly  belongs  in  a  rag-bag. 
Women  can  institute  comparisons  quite  as  well  as  men 
can,  and  what  is  more,  they  do. 

Thousands  of  American  husbands  of  the  better  class 
who  are  good  to  their  wives  in  the  sense  that  they  are 
kind  to  them  and  provide  well  for  them,  are  indifferent 
to  their  women-folk.  They  are  proud  of  their  wives,  but 
they  are  uninterested  in  them,  in  a  strictly  personal 
sense.  They  are  playing  a  tremendous  game,  and  the 
stakes  are  enormous,  for  in  this  country  a  man  must 
either  win  or  he  must  fail.  You  hear  it  said  that  men 
make  their  business  their  life  because  women  demand  it. 
Indirectly,  the  women  may  be  responsible,  but  actually 
it  is  the  pace  of  the  country  itself.  Our  men  are  gen 
erous,  and  they  like  to  see  their  women  "have  every 
thing  in  the  world".  The  result  is  that  they  often  are 
more  absorbed  in  the  process  by  which  they  are  enabled 
to  give  their  women  everything  than  they  are  in  the 
women  themselves. 

With  W.  L.  George  I  believe  that  a  great  many  men 
might  be  model  husbands  if  they  were  not  married. 
There  are  times  when  the  terrible  respectability  of  mar 
riage  palls  upon  the  male  creature,  and  he  feels  that  he 
somehow  must  break  through,  if  only  to 'assure  himself 
that  he  is  not  in  bondage  for  life.  The  recrudescence  of 
the  romantic  spirit  in  middle  life  or  shortly  thereafter  is 
another  common  cause  of  failure,  even  after  many  years 
of  conjugal  tranquility. 


64 


MARRIAGE:  WHY  WOMEN  FAIL 

ARRIAGE  is  still  the  great  beginning,  even  now 
as  it  was  with  Adam  and  Eve.  After  thou 
sands  of  years  of  human  experience,  it  is  sub 
ject  to  much  the  same  conditions,  and  it  is  con 
fronted  with  almost  the  same  perils  it  encountered  6,000 
years  ago.  Adam  and  Eve,  you  remember,  passed  their 
honeymoon  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  and  all  their  life 
thereafter,  among  the  thorns  of  the  wilderness.  The  chief 
difference  between  marriage  as  we  know  it  today  and 
marriage  as  it  was  experienced  by  our  first  father  and 
mother  is  the  difference  between  georgette  crepe  and  fig 
leaves,  between  a  mansion  filled  with  period  furniture 
and  taking  up  one's  abode  under  the  shelter  of  a  rock, 
between  eating  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  and  dining  off 
roast  capon  and  Romaine  lettuce  with  salad  oil.  In  other 
words,  time  has  changed  only  the  outward  and  artificial 
conditions,  human  nature  having  remained  much  the 
same.  It  is  still  a  struggle,  calling  for  the  exhibition 
of  the  very  best  in  human  nature.  It  means  larger  free 
dom  and  greater  responsibilities,  and  where  the  man 
and  the  woman  so  live  that  the  next  generation  shall  be 
a  little  better,  the  advancing  years  mean  but  a  climax, 
and  age  a  rich  harvest  of  memories. 

Sometimes  I  wish  that  the  wedding  ring  might  have 
inscribed  in  it  the  motto  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  "Ich 
dien"  (I  serve)  so  that  when  women  enter  into  marriage 
they  might  be  readier  to  accept  it,  not  as  a  state  of  servi 
tude,  but  an  opportunity  for  service  of  the  finest  and 
noblest  kind.  When  a  man  marries,  it  is  with  the  hope 

65 


ILLUSIONS   AND  DISILLUSIONS 

and  expectation  of  having  a  home  made  for  him  com 
mensurate  with  his  means.  Thousands  of  men  in  all 
classes,  the  clerk  class  as  well  as  the  capitalist  class  are 
exasperated  when  they  discover  that  their  wives  cannot 
or  will  not  face  the  duties  of  wifehood  and  motherhood, 
because  they  expect  to  be  kept  in  semi-idleness,  to  be 
petted  and  pampered  and  waited  upon  either  by  servants 
or  their  men-folk.  They  are  disgusted  when  they  find 
their  women  cannot  or  will  not  put  a  palatable  meal  on 
the  table,  that  they  cannot  or  will  not  sweep  and  dust 
a  room  competently,  make  a  garment,  darn  or  mend. 
Such  a  disclosure  is  frightfully  discouraging  to  a  man 
unless  he  has  almost  unlimited  sums  of  money,  and  not 
many  men  are  so  well  off.  No  woman  should  become  a 
party  to  a  marriage  contract  unless  she  will  face  the  sit 
uation  honestly  and  say  to  herself,  "I  have  undertaken 
to  serve  this  man  and  to  make  him  a  home.  It  is  up  to 
me  to  create  order  and  comfort,  harmony,  happiness  and 
security,  and  if  I  cannot  do  that,  I  will  not  have  earned 
a  faithful  husband  and  all  the  good  things  of  this  life. ' ' 
Happiness  is  not  a  purchasable  commodity.  The 
American  idea  that  "money  makes  the  mare  go"  is  re 
sponsible  for  many  of  our  social  and  political  ills.  The 
idea  started  some  decades  ago  at  the  top,  and  it  has 
filtered  down  through  every  stratum  of  society.  A  great 
deal  of  our  present  unrest  may  be  traced  to  it.  It  has 
inclined  women  all  the  more  to  be  nervous,  to  take  noth 
ing  as  immutable  in  their  lives,  to  keep  them  in  a  state 
of  suspense  in  which  they  continually  look  forward  to  the 
time  when  they  will  be  rich,  when  they  can  climb  to  a 
higher  circle  in  society.  Many  a  wife,  tormented  by  her 
unfulfilled  desire  for  the  luxuries  of  her  neighbors,  nags 

66 


MARRIAGE:    WHY   WOMEN    PAIL 

her  husband  because  he  does  not  make  as  much  money 
and  until  he  wishes  there  never  was  such  a  thing  as  mar 
riage  and  that  all  wives  could  be  consigned  to  the  shades 
below. 

The  martyred  air  some  women  assume  is  enough  to 
drive  a  man  to  drink  even  when  the  market  price  is  $35 
a  quart.  Not  a  few  socalled  "good  women"  put  on  this 
air  of  martyrdom  when  everything  does  not  go  to  suit 
them.  They  do  it  in  the  knowledge  that  there  is  nothing 
against  which  a  man  feels  so  absolutely  defenseless.  I 
have  known  men,  really  better  human  beings  than  their 
wives,  who  were  made  to  endure  this  intolerable  pose  on 
the  part  of  selfish  women.  The  stronger  of  them  take  it 
humorously  when  they  are  not  too  much  exasperated  by 
it,  and  the  weaker  ones  run  away — just  anywhere  to  find 
relief  from  the  stuffy  atmosphere  of  injured  virtue  which 
chokes  them  every  time  they  enter  their  homes.  Many 
a  man,  under  such  circumstances  has  devoutly  wished 
that  his  wife  were  an  out-and-out  sinner  so  that  for  once 
he  might  tell  her  in  plain  language  just  what  he  thought 
of  her.  But,  alas  for  the  man,  this  type  of  woman  never 
abandons  her  strategic  position  of  martyr — and  the  poor 
man  never  gets  his  chance. 

All  day  long,  men  are  meeting  people,  in  the  streets, 
in  the  cars,  in  their  offices  and  stores.  When  night  falls, 
they  have  had  just  about  enough  of  human  society, 
barring  occasional  evenings  for  diversion,  and  they  long 
for  a  little  peace  and  cheerful  quiet  within  their  own 
four  walls.  Women  who  have  been  at  home  all  day  find 
it  difficult  to  understand  this.  If  they  have  not  used  all 
their  surplus  energy  in  cooking,  cleaning,  sewing  and 
nursing  children,  they  look  forward  to  the  evening  as  a 

67 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

time  for  "excitement."  They  want  to  play  cards  or 
dance  or  go  to  the  theater  unmindful  of  the  fact  that 
their  spouses  may  be  deadly  tired.  This  difference  of 
aims  is  a  fruitful  source  of  discord.  It  irritates  a  man 
who  has  put  his  whole  mind  and  strength  into  his  busi 
ness  to  be  "dragged  out"  when  he  does  not  feel  like  it, 
and  he  readily  jumps  to  the  conclusion  that  his  efforts  to 
make  a  success  are  not  being  appreciated  and  that  he  is 
getting  no  encouragement  at  home. 

One  of  the  commonest  shortcomings  of  women  is  to  be 
deficient  in  a  practical  knowledge  of  human  nature.  Men 
are  perfectly  simple  and  sincere  in  being  satisfied  with 
passionate  love — it  is  their  wives  who  tire  of  it  quickly 
and  who  try  to  gloss  over  their  marital  relations  with  a 
lot  of  sentiment  and  sophistry,  and  who  insist  that  their 
husbands  become  interested  in  "higher  things",  that  is, 
music,  poetry,  literature  and  art.  This  type  of  woman 
easily  comes  to  believe  that  her  husband  does  not  under 
stand  her,  and  she  is  often  foolish  enough  to  drop  insin 
uating  remarks  to  the  effect  that  his  tastes  are  not  very 
lofty  and  that  his  nature  is  too  common  to  be  in  tune 
with  the  "ideal". 

Marriage  is  essentially  woman's  business,  just  as  cre 
ating  material  wealth  is  man's.  It  was  instituted,  not  to 
please  man,  but  for  her  own  protection  and  the  welfare 
of  her  children.  That  being  so,  it  is  a  pity  that  more 
women  do  not  make  shining  successes  of  marriage  when 
they  have  tolerably  good  material  to  work  with,  and  that 
so  many  wend  their  uncertain  steps  into  a  domestic  rela 
tions  court. 


68 


"THANK  YOU"  PAYS  DIVIDENDS 

HAVE  just  read  a  story  about  two  brothers  who 
have  built  up  a  tremendous  business  on  ' '  thank 
you ' '.  Operating  a  chain  of  eight  stores,  their 
sales  have  grown  in  a  few  years  from  $1  a  day 
to  over  $300,000  a  year.  The  keynote  of  all  their  busi 
ness  is — courtesy.  It  is  a  rule  of  their  stores  that  if  one 
of  their  salesmen  should  forget  to  say  ' '  thank  you "  to  a 
purchaser,  the  latter  may  keep  the  goods  and  have  his 
money  back.  Nor  will  these  two  brothers  tolerate  a  per 
functory  expression  of  appreciation.  Proprietors  as  well 
as  salesmen  make  a  point  of  saying  "thank  you"  in  a 
manner  and  voice  that  carry  conviction  to  their  patrons. 
Their  "thank  yous"  warm  the  hearts  and  cheer  the 
spirits  of  all  their  customers  who  do  not  need  to  be  urged 
to  "call  again". 

Nor  is  business  the  only  phase  of  life  that  profits  by  a 
hearty  "thank  you".  In  many  instances  home-life 
could  be  made  much  pleasanter  and  happier  by  a  more 
generous  interchange  of  thanks.  When  a  young  man  is 
courting  his  sweetheart,  she  never  dreams  of  taking  all 
his  delightful  courtesies  and  the  little  events  he  provides 
for  her  pleasure  as  a  matter  of  course  unless  she"  is  an  ill- 
bred  young  woman. 

"Thank  you",  she  says  with  her  most  winning  smile 
as  he  assists  her  to  put  on  or  take  off  her  wraps.  After 
a  dinner  or  an  evening  at  the  theater,  she  would  not 
think  of  bidding  him  goodby  without  her  thanks.  The 
gift  of  a  bouquet  or  a  box  of  candy  inspires  her  grati 
tude.  Yet,  how  often  this  delightful  exchange  of  cour- 

69 


ILLUSIONS  AND   DISILLUSIONS 

tesy  is  forgotten  just  as  soon  as  the  ink  is  dry  on  the 
marriage  certificate!  How  often  all  those  little  acts  of 
courtesy  that  made  their  period  of  courting  and  be 
trothal  so  delightfully  fascinating  are  lost  in  the  daily 
humdrum  of  domestic  life !  "Without  meaning  to  do  so, 
friend  husband  forgets  to  say  "thank  you"  when  his 
wife  renders  him  some  affectionate  little  service,  and 
friend  wife  omits  that  word  of  appreciation  when  her 
husband,  still  mindful  of  her  pleasure,  brings  home  to 
her  at  evening  a  little  remembrance,  it  may  be  only  a 
flower  or  one  of  those  magazines  women  like. 

Some  years  ago  I  visited  a  family  composed  of  a 
brother  and  a  sister.  If  the  latter  asked  that  her  brother 
raise  or  lower  the  window,  that  he  hand  her  a  shawl  or 
her  work  basket,  that  he  carry  her  letters  to  the  mail, 
his  invariable  answer  was  "with  pleasure".  And  that 
one  little  phrase  "with  pleasure"  was  said  in  a  tone  in 
dicating  that  it  gave  him  the  liveliest  personal  satisfac 
tion  to  serve  her  in  any  way  that  he  could.  That  broth 
er's  gracious  courtesy  to  his  sister  burned  itself  into 
my  memory  and  the  way  that  he  uttered  that  one  phrase 
and  others  of  a  similar*  nature  produced  on  me  an  im 
pression  that  I  never  will  forget. 

We  need  more  "thank  yous"  and  more  smiles  in  do 
mestic,  social  and  business  life.  A  hearty  "thank  you" 
costs  nothing  and  sometimes  it  pays  big  dividends.  Cer 
tainly,  it  smoothes  the  way  of  all  business.  When  you 
make  a  purchase  from  a  salesman  or  saleswoman  who 
hands  you  your  change  and  your  package  with  a  cheer 
ful  "thank  you",  you  say  to  yourself,  "I  will  certainly 
go  there  again ' '.  There  are  some  salespeople  so  kind,  so 
soliciti  ous,  so  helpful  in  their  manner  of  giving  you  atten- 

70 


"THANK  YOU"  PAYS  DIVIDENDS 

tion  as  to  make  shopping  a  delightful  experience.  There 
are  others  who  produce  the  opposite  effect.  The  latter 
are  heavy  handicaps  to  the  firms  that  employ  them. 
Where  they  cannot  learn  to  give  the  public  a  polite  con 
sideration  they  ought  to  make  room  for  those  who  can. 

A  magazine  editor  who  in  his  very  young  manhood 
sold  books  for  a  living,  said  this  to  me  one  day:  "When 
a  book  agent  calls  upon  you  in  your  office,  I  beg  you  to 
thank  him  for  calling  before  he  leaves.  You  may  not 
want  to  buy  his  books,  or  you  may  not  even  have  the 
time  to  look  at  them — but  in  the  name  of  humanity, 
don't  let  him  go  without  a  kind  word.  Book  agents  are 
the  most  persistently  snubbed  creatures  in  business. 
And  for  the  very  reason  that  they  are  accustomed  to  re 
ceiving  scant  courtesy,  a  kindly  '  thank  you '  is  something 
no  book  agent  will  ever  forget". 

There  is  no  excuse  or  occasion  for  impoliteness  or  dis 
courtesy.  They  have  no  place  in  civilized  life. 

Business  men  and  business  women — husbands  and 
wives — parents  and  children — brothers  and  sisters — 
teachers  and  pupils — lovers  and  friends — plenty  of  smil 
ing,  cordial  "thank  yous",  generously  and  judiciously 
distributed,  pay  big  dividends  in  happiness  and  success. 


71 


RECREATION  FOR  HOUSEWIVES 

HE  sense  of  duty  that  "leans  backward"  is  at 
once,  a  pathetic  and  tragic  thing.  It  is  pa 
thetic  because  it  is  so  sadly  mistaken,  and  it 
becomes  tragic  for  the  reason  that  so  many  un 
necessary  evils  are  likely  to  follow  in  its  train.  It  seems 
to  have  an  affinity  for  extremists,  and  not  the  least  com 
mon  of  its  victims  is  the  housewife,  who,  lacking  a  proper 
sense  of  proportion  regarding  her  duty  to  herself  and  her 
family,  digs  an  early  grave  for  herself  by  giving  up  all 
amusement  and  recreation  and  working  herself,  literally, 
to  death.  Here  is  a  letter  that  came  to  me  from  a  wife 
and  mother  who  is  keenly  disturbed  over  the  problem  of 
her  recreation,  and  who  says: 

"I  am  a  woman  in  my  twenties  with  four  babies.  I 
do  all  of  my  own  work  except  the  washing.  I  make  the 
children's  garments  and  also  my  husband's  shirts.  I  am 
not  complaining — don't  misunderstand  me,  for  I  thor 
oughly  enjoy  my  children  and  my  work,  and  I  believe 
that  the  busiest  people  are  the  happiest.  The  one  thing 
that  worries  me  is  the  problem  of  recreation.  About 
once  in  two  weeks,  I  have  my  mother  stay  with  the  chil 
dren  while  I  go  to  a  moving  picture  theater.  I  love  good 
pictures  and  it  is  a  great  relief  to  sit  down  and  relax. 
Yet,  all  the  time  I  am  in  the  theater  I  feel  as  if  I  were 
committing  a  crime  against  my  family,  and  I  ought  not 
to  take  time  from  my  home  when  there  are  so  many 
things  to  be  done  there.  On  the  other  hand,  I  always 
return  from  my  little  outings  feeling  greatly  refreshed 
and  better  able  to  go  on  with  my  work.  What  do  you 

72 


RECREATION   FOR   HOUSEWIVES 

think  about  it?  Am  I  wasting  time  that  I  should  be 
giving  to  my  home  and  my  husband?" 

The  only  crime  that  this  very  good  and  conscientious 
wife  and  mother  is  likely  to  commit  is  in  not  giving  her 
self  enough  recreation  for  the  welfare  of  her  own  fam 
ily  and  for  her  own  good.  Two  things  happen  to  the 
woman  who  spends  every  waking  hour  on  her  household 
duties — she  overdraws  her  account,  physically  speaking, 
and  she  deteriorates  mentally. 

For  every  law  nature  makes,  she  exacts  a  penalty  for 
its  violation.  Every  time  we  break  a  law,  nature  takes 
note  of  that  fact,  and  sooner  or  later  she  renders  an 
accounting  for  all  the  nights  of  sleep  we  have  lost,  the 
meals  we  were  too  busy  to  eat,  the  days  when  we  ex 
hausted,  not  only  our  normal  fund  of  strength  and  en 
ergy,  but  that  which  we  hold  in  reserve.  The  bill  is  pre 
sented,  and  we  must  pay,  sometimes  in  the  coin  of 
exhaustion,  sometimes  in  illness,  and  it  may  be  with 
our  lives. 

Every  mother  of  a  family  has  the  future  as  well  as 
the  present  to  think  of.  She  owes  it  to  her  husband  and 
her  children  to  take  enough  rest  and  recreation  to  keep 
herself  mentally  and  physically  fit.  What  will  it  profit 
her  husband  and  her  children  who  need  her  mothering 
care  until  maturity  if  she  exhausts  herself  by  the  time 
she  reaches  middle  life,  with  the  result  that  she  either 
sinks  into  invalidism  or  is  called  to  the  other  world? 
No  human  being  can  live  without  a  reasonable  amount 
of  relaxation,  and  one  of  the  commonest  mistakes  made 
by  the  people  of  this  country,  reen  and  women  alike,  is 
to  overwork  and  run  up  a  bill  to  nature  that  they  never 
will  be  able  to  pay. 

73 


ILLUSIONS  AND  DISILLUSIONS 

The  woman  who  never  takes  any  pleasure  loses  her 
youthfulness  and  beauty.  She  forfeits  her  charm  and 
becomes  stale. 

"I  have  not  the  strength  to  do  all  the  housework  that 
I  ought  to  do  and  all  the  sewing  for  my  family,  so  I  have 
had  to  decide  what  is  absolutely  essential  and  what  is 
partially  non-essential  and  make  out  my  program  ac 
cording  to  that",  said  a  bright  and  sensible  wife  and 
mother.  "My  husband  and  my  children  prefer  that  I 
should  feel  well  and  happy  to  having  every  nook  and 
corner  immaculate.  As  the  lesser  of  two  evils,  I  do  not 
keep  my  house  as  clean  as  when  I  could  afford  to  hire 
some  help".  Devoted  as  she  is  to  the  interests  of  her 
family,  this  woman  strikes  a  happy  balance  by  claiming 
certain  hours  for  rest  and  recreation,  to  go  to  an  occa 
sional  party  or  attend  the  theater. 

Moderation  is  a  great  virtue.  The  nerves  of  a  great 
many  women  in  this  country  are  on  a  hair  trigger  be 
cause  they  never  give  themselves  any  rest  or  repose.  I 
have  known  women,  who,  while  performing  all  the  work 
of  their  households,  with  the  result  that  they  always 
were  in  a  state  of  semi-exhaustion  would  embroider  their 
children's  garments,  and  I  once  knew  an  over- worked 
woman  who  embroidered  her  monogram  on  aprons  she 
made  for  kitchen  wear. 

The  wiser  wife  and  mother  so  arranges  her  program 
that  she  reserves  to  herself  a  few  hours  for  recreation 
and  pleasure,  not  once  in  a  fortnight,  but  several  times 
a  week.  She  is  the  better  wife  and  mother  for  it.  She 
lives  longer.  She  is  healthier  and  happier,  and  her 
children  love  her  all  the  more. 


PITY,  DON  T  CONDEMN  SNOBS 

ROM  time  to  time  I  receive  requests  to  write  on 
the  subject  of  snobs.     Always,  I  am  tempted 
to  accept  the    challenge;  first,    because    new 
kinds  and  varieties  of  snobs  always  are  de 
veloping,  and  second,  I  find  from  year  to  year,  my  ideas 
concerning  snobs  undergoing  some  change. 

Snobs  and  their  snobbishness  formerly  provoked  me 
to  anger.  They  no  longer  do.  I  have  come  to  realize 
that  snobbishness  is  the  result  of  personal  limitations,  of 
ignorance,  a  narrow  soul  and  a  small  mind.  Instead  of 
condemning  snobs  for  their  snobbishness,  we  should  pity 
them.  They  merely  are  suffering  from  ' '  growing-pains ' ' 
and  they  likely  will  feel  better  in  some  future  day. 

You  may  have  thought  that  snobs  are  a  self-satisfied 
and  self-confident  lot.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  the 
most  uneasy  and  discomposed  of  persons.  Continually 
they  are  fearful  of  saying  or  doing  something  that  may 
not  place  them  in  the  best  possible  light.  They  con 
stantly  are  tortured  with  fears,  doubts  and  misgivings. 
Judging  by  some  of  their  actions,  you  would  think  that 
their  reputations,  their  social  positions  actually  hung 
by  a  thread. 

This  fear  which  pursues  them  like  a  Nemesis  will  ex 
plain  snobs  and  many  of  the  things  they  do.  It  explains 
the  woman  who  makes  a  pretense  of  not  having  seen  her 
neighbor  who  has  not  yet  scaled  so  many  rungs  of  the 
social  ladder.  It  explains  the  woman  who  trembles  at 
the  thought  of  having  her  name  appear  in  a  guest-list 
unless  that  list  be  composed  of  the  names  of  her  own  set. 

75 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

It  explains  the  mother  of  the  bride  who  protests  against 
having  the  name  of  the  groom's  parents  in  the  wedding 
story  because  they  are  not  as  prominent  socially  as  some 
of  the  bride's  friends.  It  explains  the  employer  who 
cannot  bring  himself  to  acknowledge  courteously  the 
presence  of  one  of  his  employes,  outside  of  office  hours. 
It  explains  the  man  who  is  just  a  little  bit  ashamed  to 
take  a  girl  out  to  dinner,  no  matter  how  pretty  and  gen 
tle  and  refined  she  may  be,  just  because  she  happens  ' '  to 
work". 

I  do  not  know  whether  to  call  it  a  comedy  or  a  tragedy 
— an  incident  I  witnessed  recently. 

At  a  certain  social  gathering,  three  women,  richly 
dressed  and  much  bejeweled,  were  standing  in  a  group. 
Their  money  was  a  decidedly  recent  acquisition.  The 
only  thing  they  knew  to  do  with  it  was  to  buy  furs,  dia 
monds  in  great  profusion,  houses  with  too  much  furniture 
in  them  and  expensive  motor  cars.  Suddenly,  their  con 
versation,  keyed  to  a  note  rather  unpleasantly  personal, 
was  interrupted  by  the  friendly  salutation  of  a  fourth 
woman  whose  face,  manner,  voice,  dress  and  bearing  be 
tokened  gentility.  Her  gown  and  hat,  it  must  be  ad 
mitted,  were  not  in  the  very  latest  fashion  and  her  hands 
were  bare  of  rings.  What  did  those  three  women  do  but 
deliberately  turn  their  too  ample  backs  upon  her — three 
mongrels  trying  to  snub  a  thorough-bred. 

Easy  money,  I  suppose,  always  will  be  the  soil  in  which 
snobbery  flourishes.  Easy  money,  without  education  or 
native  refinement  is  the  mother  of  vulgarity,  pretense 
and  ostentation.  It  has  a  way  of  clothing  its  makers  in 
garments  of  habit,  thought  and  manner  that  are  ill-fitting 
to  say  the  very  least. 

76 


PITY,   DON'T   CONDEMN    SNOBS 

I  do  not  believe  that  the  newly  rich  American  man 
often  is  willingly  a  snob.  Usually,  it  is  the  woman  in  his 
family  who  drags  him  at  the  chariot  wheels  of  her  snob 
bery  and  who  brings  up  his  sons  and  daughters  in  the 
faith.  The  average  man  who  makes  a  success  feels  just 
as  good  as  anybody.  He  is  an  elemental  creature  in  this 
— that  he  sees  no  reason  why  he  should  conciliate  men 
and  women  of  loftier  social  position.  They  may  have 
more  graceful  manners,  or  they  may  speak  better  Eng 
lish,  but  they  haven't  any  bigger  house  than  he  has,  or  a 
bigger  pile  of  rocks.  Usually,  he  is  too  robust  of  nature, 
too  wholesome  to  sacrifice  his  self-respect  to  gain  a  doubt 
ful  end. 

When  you  pause  to  consider  that  the  general  run  of 
intelligent  people  ha-.  •?,  just  about  the  same  cares  and 
responsibilities,  joys,  s,  rrows  and  satisfactions,  it  seems 
so  pitiful  that  they  shcv.ld  permit  themselves  to  be  di 
vided  by  superficial  things.  In  the  hour  of  death  or  in 
the  face  of  hunger  all  superficialities  drop  from  us  like 
a  garment,  and  we  get  down  to  first  principles,  made  one 
in  our  common  humanity. 

The  true  man  seeks  fame  in  this  world,  the  snob 
notoriety.  The  true  man  hopes  to  win  a  place  in  the 
hearts  of  the  people,  while  the  snob  is  fully  satisfied  to 
be  in  the  public  eye.  The  true  man  hopes  to  win  the  re 
spect  and  sincere  admiration  of  his  fellows.  The  snob's 
ambition  is  to  be  envied  by  those  who  have  less  than  he. 
The  true  man  waits  to  be  sought  out.  The  snob,  who 
imagines  that  everybody  is  secretly  worshiping  his 
money,  rushes  in  where  an  angel  would  fear  to  tread. 
While  he  hugs  to  his  soul  the  bright  delusion  that  he  is 
exciting  great  interest  and  curiosity,  he  inspires  nothing 

77 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

more  enviable  than  the  silent  contempt  of  the  wiser  and 
better-bred. 

Thorough-bred  men  and  women  never  are  afraid  to  be 
kind  and  courteous.  They  feel  none  of  that  uneasiness 
in  coming  in  contact  with  humbler  persons  which  so 
torments  the  snob.  They  never  are  afraid  of  imperiling 
their  social  position  by  any  act  of  human  kindness, 
though  it  be  done  to  the  lowliest  creature.  They  can 
stand  apart  from  the  worry  and  fret  and  glare  of  the 
social  scramble,  unconcerned  and  secure. 


78 


CHARACTER  IS  POWER 

E  "WOULD  rather  have  a  small  account  with  a 
good  name  behind  it  than  a  large  account  in 
the  name  of  a  man  who  did  not  stand  for  the 
best  things",  declared  a  highly  successful 
banker.  ' '  The  bank  account  that  is  backed  by  character 
is  the  account  we  are  looking  for". 

More  and  more  the  business  world  is  coming  to  value 
character.  More  and  more  it  asks  less  about  a  man's 
technical  skill  than  concerning  his  character  and  habits 
of  life.  There  was  a  day  when  a  brilliant  drunkard  had 
a  pretty  fair  chance  in  business.  That  day  is  past  and 
gone.  One  of  the  first  things  an  employer  wants  to 
know  about  a  prospective  employe  is  the  character  of  the 
man  and  his  habits.  The  first  consideration  with  a 
banker  when  he  loans  money  is  the  character  of  the  per 
son  who  seeks  the  loan,  for  he  knows  that  the  man  of 
character  will  pay  his  debts  and  meet  his  obligations  at 
whatever  sacrifice  to  himself.  Life  insurance  companies 
are  keenly  interested  in  the  character  of  men  and  women 
who  hold  their  policies,  and  they  are  extremely  suspicious 
of  grafters  and  libertines.  Men  and  women  of  known 
character  and  established  reputations  are  always  in  de 
mand  in  the  business  world. 

Every  city  has  its  group  of  ''prominent  citizens". 
Most  of  them  are  men  and  women  of  character.  Some 
of  them  are  not. 

There  is  an  "upper  ten"  or  a  "four  hundred"  in 
society.  In  every  group,  whether  it  be  in  business,  in 
society,  in  the  church,  lodge,  store  or  workshop,  you  will 

79 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

find  men  and  women  of  character.  They  are  marked 
men  and  women  and  they  stand  out  from  the  mass.  They 
may  not  have  very  much  money,  but  they  have  something 
that  is  more  precious  than  gold. 

What  is  superior  character? 

It  is  not  to  be  gauged  by  the  money  you  have,  by  the 
clothes  you  wear,  and  sad  to  relate,  it  may  not  always  be 
determined  by  the  position  you  hold  in  society. 

Neither  is  it  to  be  found  in  genius,  if  you  are  one  of 
those  rare  persons  who  has  genius,  or  in  talent  or  any 
special  ability. 

There  is  many  a  millionaire  who  is  a  cheap  scoundrel. 
There  is  many  an  artist  who  is  a  cad.  There  are  great 
actresses  and  singers  who  are  wholly  without  character. 
Sooner  or  later  they  are  all  found  out,  and  if  nothing 
worse  happens  to  them,  they  fail  in  realizing  by  one-half 
on  their  potentialities. 

In  a  great  financial  panic  in  the  middle  of  the  last 
century  all  the  bank  presidents  of  New  York  City  held 
a  meeting  one  night.  When  they  exchanged  experiences 
on  the  amount  of  specie  that  had  been  drawn  from  their 
various  banks  during  the  day — some  of  them  had  lost  as 
high  as  75  per  cent  of  their  deposits — Moses  Taylor  of 
the  City  bank  reported :  ' '  We  had  $400,000  in  our  bank 
this  morning.  Tonight,  we  have  $470,000 ' '.  So  great  was 
the  confidence  of  people  in  the  character  of  Moses  Tay 
lor  that  they  had  in  many  cases  deposited  in  the  City 
bank  money  they  had  drawn  from  other  banks. 

How  many  young  people  realize  that  substantial  suc 
cess  depends  more  upon  character  than  what  they  know 
and  what  they  have? 

It  was  character  that  elected  both  Washington  and 
80 


CHARACTER   IS   POWER 

Lincoln  to  the  presidency,  and  I  sincerely  believe  that  it 
is  character,  more  than  any  other  qualification  that  the 
people  of  this  country  want  in  their  chief  executive. 
They  want  honesty  and  sterling  ability.  They  want  no 
tricksters  or  cheap  politicians.  They  want  one  of  whom 
it  may  be  said,  that,  ' '  The  elements  so  mixed  in  him  that 
Nature  might  stand  up  and  say  to  all  the  world,  '  This  is 
a  man!'  " 

There  must  be  something  in  a  man  better  than  his 
achievements ;  something  finer  than  his  material  wealth ; 
something  nobler  than  his  genius;  something  more  en 
during  than  fame. 

Money  and  fame  and  culture  and  position  are  sources 
of  undoubted  strength — today.  But  character  is  the  one 
dependable  source  of  power  yesterday,  today  and  for 
ever.  It  is  both  a  cause  and  a  result. 


81 


WOMAN— PRACTICAL  POET 

INSPIRATION,  true  culture  and  refinement — 
these  are  the  three  great  needs  of  the  home. 
A  great  many  people  look  upon  personal  cul 
ture  as  a  strange,  remote  and  unattainable 
thing.  The  girl  living  in  a  small  town,  far  removed  from 
the  centers  of  fashion,  the  theaters,  the  opera  and  all 
the  luxuries  that  modern  industry  can  offer,  imagines 
that  life's  best  inspirations  and  personal  culture  are  out 
of  her  reach.  The  country  woman,  still  more  remote 
from  advanced  schools,  colleges  and  luxurious  living  and 
the  hard-working  women  in  the  city  who  never  lift  their 
eyes  above  their  daily  round  of  monotonous  household 
duty  assume  likewise  that  culture  is  something  quite 
apart  from  them. 

True  culture  and  refinement  are  within  the  reach  of 
every  human  being,  whatever  his  condition  or  station  in 
life.  The  poorest  farm  woman,  the  humblest  working 
girl,  the  man  who  performs  the  roughest  kind  of  labor 
can  be  thoroughly  cultivated  if  they  so  desire.  There  is 
nothing  mysterious  or  illusive  in  refinement  of  thought, 
manner  or  speech  that  renders  it  accessible  only  to  the 
elect.  Education  and  refinement  of  feeling  are  possible 
to  all  men  and  women.  In  some  of  the  simplest  homes, 
there  resides  the  truest  culture,  the  keenest  sense  of  the 
artistic,  the  utmost  refinement  of  manner  and  speech.  On 
the  contrary,  one  can  meet  crudeness  and  coarseness  in 
the  finest  mansions,  a  vulgarity  of  thought  and  a  lack 
of  inspiration  that  will  send  a  chill  to  the  marrow  of 
one's  bones. 

For  the  uses  of  culture,  it  matters  very  little  whether 
82 


WOMAN — PRACTICAL   POET 

you  have  a  rag  carpet  or  an  Axminster  rug  on  the  floor, 
so  long  as  the  colors  are  harmoniously  blended  and  it 
serves  the  purpose  to  which  it  is  put.  It  matters  very 
little  whether  the  curtains  at  the  window  are  of  muslin 
or  the  finest  lace  so  long  as  they  are  clean,  well  made 
and  well  hung.  Many  people  have  the  idea  that  cheap 
things  cannot  be  beautiful,  that  artistic  effects  can  be 
achieved  only  by  the  expenditure  of  a  great  deal  of 
money.  They  believe  that  they  cannot  be  well  educated 
unless  they  graduate  from  a  college,  travel  extensively 
and  have  a  library  containing  a  thousand  books.  They 
forget  that  some  of  our  greatest  men  have  had  nothing 
more  than  a  common  school  education,  that  artists  often 
spring  from  peasant  stock.  They  overlook  the  fact  that 
self-made  men  of  fine  attainment  were  inspired  to  reach 
out  for  the  best  things  in  the  world,  that  some  of  them 
bought  books  when  they  did  not  have  enough  money  to 
supply  them  with  food  and  clothing.  When  he  could 
not  afford  to  buy  candles,  Abraham  Lincoln  pored  over 
his  few  precious  volumes  during  winter  evenings  by  the 
light  of  the  fire.  Josiah  Wedgwood  borrowed  a  copy  of 
Thomson's  "Seasons",  learned  it  by  heart,  and  out  of 
the  inspiration  he  received  from  that  one  volume,  he 
passed  from  the  modeling  of  butter  crocks  to  the  ex 
quisite  potteries  that  bear  his  name. 

It  is  true  that  multitudes  of  people  have  forsaken  or 
avoided  the  means  of  culture  because  caste  is  founded 
to  a  great  extent  upon  material  prosperity.  They  be 
come  disheartened  when  society  exalts  outward  over  in 
ward  things,  the  material  over  the  spiritual.  Such  con 
ditions  have  unfortunately  alienated  man  from  his 
brother.  They  have  sundered  the  ties  of  common  hu- 

83 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

inanity.  They  have  bred  jealously,  scorn  and  mutual  ill- 
will.  The  poor  man  has  thought  that  he  was  in  some 
way  radically  different  from  the  rich  man,  and  for  that 
reason  it  was  futile  for  him  to  aspire.  The  poor  woman, 
likewise,  has  been  dismayed  by  the  luxuries  and  oppor 
tunities  of  her  wealthier  sisters,  and  where  she  might 
have  seen  diamonds  had  she  been  looking  for  them,  she 
has  seen  only  the  dust. 

There  is  no  valid  reason,  however,  why  any  class  or 
condition  of  people  should  neglect  the  means  of  grace, 
why  they  should  tolerate  in  themselves  or  their  children 
rude  speech,  careless  manners,  personal  slovenliness,  or 
why  such  characteristics  should  persist  from  one  genera 
tion  to  the  other.  Also,  there  is  no  reason  why  courtesy, 
cleanliness,  delicacy,  ease  of  manner  and  refinement 
should  not  be  habitual  with  the  laboring  multitude.  Is 
not  a  man  more  than  dress  or  upholstery?  Cannot  the 
spirit  triumph  over  humble  situations  and  defy  the  show 
of  the  universe? 

The  burden  of  refining  influence  rests,  of  course,  with 
women.  It  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  if  all 
the  women  in  the  world  were  destroyed,  all  the  men 
would  be  barbarians  within  a  year.  It  is  the  woman  who 
has  always  aspired  to  and  demanded  the  means  of  refine 
ment.  It  is  she  who  lays  the  spotless  white  cloth  and 
arranges  the  bright  silver.  It  is  the  woman  who  picks 
the  flower  and  puts  it  tenderly  in  a  vase.  It  is  the  woman 
who  brings  a  bit  of  art  or  music  in  the  home.  The  art  of 
dress  would  be  unknown  were  it  not  for  women.  For 
every  true  woman  is  a  practical  poet.  By  her  gentleness, 
by  her  domestic  arts  and  refinements,  she  tames  the 
savage  in  her  mate. 

84 


WOMAN — PRACTICAL   POET 

One  day  I  heard  a  man  recalling  the  dulcet  tones  of 
his  mother's  voice.  As  she  passed  her  children  in  going 
about  her  housework,  she  would  give  each  one  a  swift 
caress.  Though  she  was  compelled  to  do  all  the  work 
for  a  large  family,  washing,  ironing,  cooking,  scrubbing, 
sewing,  mending,  she  at  the  same  time  schooled  her  chil 
dren  in  a  classic  appreciation  of  life.  She  so  taught 
them  the  means  of  grace  that  they  have  become  as  nat 
ural  to  them  as  breathing.  They  remember  her  as  the 
one  most  charming  and  magnetic  woman  in  the  world. 

If  we  would  all  quit  aping  the  rich  man  and  trying 
to  outstrip  our  neighbors;  if  we  would  consecrate  our 
leisure  and  such  sums  as  we  could  reasonably  save  from 
our  earnings  to  the  means  of  culture  such  as  the  best 
books,  the  best  music,  to  congenial  society,  to  the  enjoy 
ment  of  the  beautiful  in  art  and  nature  and  to  the  kindly 
and  sympathetic  offices  of  humanity,  we  would  no  longer 
stand  accused  of  being  a  nation  of  superficial  culture. 
We  would  soon  earn  the  right  to  be  called  the  most 
broadly  cultivated  people  on  earth. 


85 


MODERN  CHESTERFIELDS 

LIHU  ROOT  has  said  that  every  lawyer  should 
read  Blackstone's  Commentaries  once  a  year. 
Mr.  Root  not  only  took  his  own  counsel — he 
actually  wrote  out  the  commentaries  in  long 
hand  three  times  in  his  life. 

Whether  we  be  lawyers,  doctors,  business  men  or 
laborers,  there  is  one  book  which  all  of  us  would  do  well 
to  read  once  a  year.  Better  still  would  it  be  to  write  it 
and  memorize  it  during  the  formative  period  of  our  lives. 
That  book  is  "Lord  Chesterfield's  Letters  to  His  Son", 
the  most  valuable  treatise  on  manners  and  deportment 
that  ever  was  penned.  More  than  that,  it  is  an  eloquent 
argument  for  striving,  and  urging  toward  ambition. 
Lord  Chesterfield  had  no  patience  with  men  who  did  not 
realize  on  their  talents  and  opportunities.  And  his 
words  are  the  more  convincing  because  they  were  ad 
dressed  to  a  much  beloved  son. 

For  a  long  time  I  have  believed  that  the  business  col 
leges  of  this  country  could  teach  nothing  to  their  pupils 
that  would  be  more  useful  to  them  in  their  commercial 
careers  than  the  art  of  deportment.  And  the  first  col 
lege  that  adds  a  course  in  good  manners  to  its  curriculum 
is  going  to  make  tremendous  strides  ahead  of  its  rivals. 
Suppose  a  college  does  graduate  good  typists !  How  can 
they  render  satisfactory  service  to  their  employers  if 
they  do  not  know  how  to  comport  themselves?  I  have 
seen  typists  who  would  never  miss  so  much  as  the  in 
sertion  of  a  comma  in  their  typing,  but  who  had  atrocious 
manners.  Such  a  woman  is  not  only  at  a  severe  personal 

86 


MODERN   CHESTERFIELDS 

disadvantage — she  is  a  constant  source  of  embarrass 
ment  to  her  employer,  who  may  never  know  how  many 
persons  whose  favor  he  desires,  she  inadvertently  will 
offend. 

As  you  go  about  in  the  world  you  encounter  some  very 
queer  ideas  about  the  function  of  good  manners.  Some 
men  seem  to  think  that  it  is  effeminate  to  exhibit  beauti 
ful  manners  before  their  associates.  Others  labor  under 
the  delusion  that  politeness  is  a  time-waster.  They  hold 
the  idea  that  a  short  answer  is  a  short  cut  in  business, 
that  the  way  to  be  looked  up  to  and  respected  is  to  be 
abrupt  and  gruff.  No  philosophy  ever  was  more  falla 
cious.  It  may  require  a  little  more  thought,  but  it  takes 
no  more  time  to  reply  politely  than  it  does  to  be  curt. 

There  is  no  more  interesting  study  than  the  psychology 
of  business  procedure  as  it  is  applied  by  different  busi 
ness  men.  A  certain  man  of  very  large  interests  has  not 
a  single  chair  in  his  reception  room.  It  matters  not  how 
long  you  must  wait  to  see  him,  you  are  compelled  to 
stand.  By  the  time  you  obtain  an  audience  with  him, 
you  are  so  weary  and  so  much  irritated  that  you  want 
to  turn  and  go.  What  is  this  man's  reason  for  making 
you  uncomfortable?  Simply  this — if  he  succeeds  in 
wearing  and  irritating  the  people  who  call  to  see  him, 
he  believes  that  when  they  enter  his  private  office,  he  will 
have  the  advantage  of  them.  They  will  be  tired  and 
nervous,  worried  and  out  of  sorts.  Being  unwearied  and 
unruffled  himself,  he  is  in  a  position  to  "get  the  best" 
of  them. 

Evidently,  this  man,  who  is  a  very  thoughtful  man, 
fails  to  see  that  there  is  a  reverse  side  to  this  situation. 
I  do  not  believe  he  has  ever  suspected  that  it  is  not  wise 

87 


ILLUSIONS  AND   DISILLUSIONS 

to  treat  friend  or  foe  alike.  He  has  not  counted  upon 
making  enemies  by  his  ungraciousness.  He  greatly  un 
derestimates  the  value  of  friendship  and  the  good  will 
of  his  fellow-men.  If  he  were  a  clearer-sighted  student 
of  psychology,  he  would  know  that  you  can  make  a  bet 
ter  deal  with  a  man  when  he  is  in  a  good  humor,  when 
he  is  comfortable  physically  than  when  he  is  not. 

Dispatch  is  the  soul  of  business  and  nothing  contrib 
utes  more  toward  dispatch  than  a  civil  manner.  It 
takes  no  more  time  to  rise  than  to  remain  seated.  A 
pleasant  "Thank  you"  is  said  in  a  breath.  No  time  is 
lost  in  prefacing  one's  request  with  that  gracious  little 
word  "Please"  or  to  accede  to  a  request  with  the  phrase, 
"With  pleasure".  It  is  such  a  simple  thing  to  open  the 
door  for  a  departing  caller,  and  it  does  help  so  much  to 
say  with  a  smile,  "I  am  glad  that  you  came". 

The  Chesterfields  make  the  conspicuous  successes.  You 
seldom  find  one  that  fails. 


BEAUTY  OF  THE  LATER  LOVE 

|OW  little  consideration  do  we  give  to  the  beau 
ties  of  the  later  love.  How  thoughtless  we  are 
in  our  common  assumption  that  the  only  real 
love  matches  are  those  of  early  youth.  Young 
love  is  an  exquisite  sentiment.  It  is  a  divine  madness, 
full  of  beauty  and  charm  and  flavor  and  fragrance.  It 
is  like  a  rosy  cloud  hovering  over  the  eastern  horizon  of 
the  early  morning  of  life.  Yet,  its  beauty  is  not  so 
gorgeous  as  the  love  that  comes  to  man  and  woman  when 
they  have  lived  beyond  their  first  youth,  who  take  to  the 
altar  with  them  all  the  richness  of  a  fine  experience,  the 
wisdom  that  comes  from  lives  well  lived,  and  a  depth 
of  romantic  feeling  and  devotion  such  as  boyhood  and 
girlhood  cannot  possibly  know. 

Some  years  ago  while  I  was  a  reporter  of  society,  a 
cultivated  gentlewoman,  her  soft  white  hair  framing  a 
lovely  face  came  into  my  office  one  day  and,  with  a  good 
deal  of  hesitation,  asked  me  to  make  announcement  of 
her  marriage  which  was  to  take  place  the  following  day. 

"What  will  my  friends  say  about  me?"  she  asked 
when  she  had  finished  giving  me  the  story. 

"They  will  say  that  they  are  delighted",  I  answered. 
This  delightful  woman  who  had  retained  much  of  her 
youthful  energy  and  vivacity  was  marrying  a  man  of 
suitable  age  and  position,  and  there  was  every  reason  to 
assume  that  they  would  "live  happily  ever  after",  an 
assumption  that  has  proved  to  be  correct.  Theirs  has 
been  an  exceptionally  happy  marriage.  If  ever  two 

89 


ILLUSIONS  AND   DISILLUSIONS 

persons  were  looking  peacefully  and  cheerfully  toward 
the  fade-out  of  life's  drama,  if  ever  man  and  woman 
lived  in  perfect  harmony  and  in  daily  consideration  of 
their  service  to  each  other,  they  are  the  white-haired 
couple  whose  wedding  story  I  wrote  with  the  keenest 
pleasure  some  ten  years  ago. 

No  human  tie  can  be  of  stronger  tissue  than  the  at 
tachment  between  a  mature  man  and  woman,  who  un 
hampered  with  young  illusions,  take  each  other  for  bet 
ter  or  for  worse. 

A  young  girl  has  too  many  illusions,  she  is  too  inex 
perienced,  and  the  sex  instinct  counts  for  too  much  in 
the  love  she  gives  to  the  man  of  her  choice,  for  her  love 
to  be  as  deeply  founded  as  that  of  a  woman  of  greater 
age.  Curiosity  is  a  factor  in  her  thinking  and  feeling. 
Adventure  is  another  element.  Where  a  young  girl 
yields  to  emotional  feeling,  an  older  woman  makes  a 
deliberate  choice.  To  the  man  who  wins  that  older 
woman  I  would  say,  "Is  not  that  choice  a  subtle  flat 
tery  ? ' '  The  woman  is  armed  with  experience  and  knowl 
edge.  For  that  knowledge  and  experience  she  usually 
has  paid  pretty  dearly.  It  is  extremely  doubtful  if  the 
inexperienced  girl,  who  naturally  enough  is  unable  to 
make  comparisons,  measures  anything  at  its  true  worth. 

Then,  a  girl's  coquetry  is  but  simple,  while  the 
woman's  coquetry  is  inexhaustible.  She  can  satisfy  a 
score  of  demands  made  by  a  man 's  vanity  while  a  young 
girl  does  well  if  she  satisfies  one.  With  her  greater 
power  and  dignity,  with  her  greater  understanding  and 
sympathy  and  tolerance,  her  ability  to  comfort  where 
a  girl  would  only  moan,  she  need  not  forfeit  her  girlish- 
ness.  We  all  know  certain  women  who  seem  to  possess 

90 


BEAUTY   OP   THE  LATER   LOVE 

a  deathless  gift  of  girlish  spirits,  which  cling  to  them 
until  the  end  of  life. 

In  the  golden  prime  of  a  later  love,  when  a  man  and 
a  women  look  out  over  life's  poetic  summit,  they  com 
bine  with  the  fervor  of  the  first  passion  that  depth  of 
feeling  which  only  experience  can  bring.  Youth  can 
look  only  into  the  future,  and  a  strange,  unexplored 
future  at  that.  Maturity  looks  both  ways,  back  into  the 
past,  forward  into  the  future,  into  the  whole  course  of 
romantic  love.  ' '  This  is  love ' '  they  can  say  to  each  other 
for  they  know  whereof  they  speak. 

No  one  has  ever  expressed  this  sentiment  more  beau 
tifully  or  more  truly  than  Henry  "Ward  Beecher  in  one 
of  his  sermons  where  he  says:  "Love  is  the  river  of  life 
in  this  world.  Think  not  that  ye  know  it  who  stand  at 
the  little  tinkling  rill,  the  first  small  fountain.  Not  un 
til  you  have  gone  through  the  rocky  gorges,  and  not  lost 
the  stream ;  not  until  you  have  gone  through  the  meadow, 
and  the  stream  has  widened  and  deepened  until  fleets 
eould  rise  on  its  bosom;  not  until  beyond  the  meadow 
you  have  come  to  the  unfathomable  ocean,  and  poured 
your  treasure  into  its  depths — not  until  then  can  you 
know  what  love  is". 

If  this  be  true,  then  only  maturity  can  know  and  ex 
perience  the  full  measure  of  love.  Only  in  maturity  can 
men  and  women  discover  themselves  in  each  other.  The 
younger  people  who  read  this  may  resent  it.  But  those 
who  have  reached  life's  summit  or  are  approaching  it, 
will  know  the  meaning  of  my  words. 


WIT  VERSUS  SILVER  PLATE 

E'LL  have  tea  and  bread  and  butter  sand 
wiches.  Not  a  very  heavy  diet — but  it  will 
do."  "Do  let  me  contribute  some  cake", 
urged  the  friend  in  whose  honor  this  festivity 
was  to  be  given. 

"No,  thank  you,  I  couldn't  possibly  let  you  do  that. 
Everybody  knows  that  I  can  afford  bread  and  butter  and 
that  I  cannot  afford  cake.  So,  we  will  have  the  bread 
and  butter  and  if  there  are  any  on  this  list  of  forty  who 
are  not  satisfied  with  such  light  rations,  well — I  will 
have  to  let  them  go." 

If  more  women  would  assume  so  sensible  an  attitude 
toward  the  discharge  of  their  social  obligations,  there 
would  be  a  great  deal  more  wholesome  pleasure  to  be 
enoyed  in  this  life. 

The  first  speaker  had  ^>een  a  great  belle  in  her  girl 
hood.  She  had  married  a  man  in  official  life  who  was 
not  blessed  with  very  much  money.  Very  wisely,  they 
decided  in  the  beginning  to  cut  the  scale  of  their  living 
to  fit  the  cloth  of  their  income,  and  to  make  no  apologies 
for  the  fact  that  they  could  not  dress  or  entertain  with 
the  same  lavishness  and  beauty  as  their  wealthier  friends. 
This,  however,  did  not  prevent  them  from  thoroughly 
enjoying  their  environment,  from  entertaining  in  their 
own  manner  and  from  going  about  just  as  happily  and 
gaily  as  if  they  had  been  worth  a  million  or  two.  For 
what  they  lacked  in  elegance  of  equipment  they  fully 
compensated  for  in  personal  charm  and  bright  spirits. 

92 


WIT   VERSUS   SILVER   PLATE 

The  wife  offered  no  excuses  for  the  simplicity  of  her 
wardrobe,  nor  for  her  bread  and  butter  sandwiches  and 
tea.  So  delightful  was  the  quality  of  her  hospitality  that 
not  one  of  her  guests  ever  thought  of  comparing  to  her 
disadvantage  her  simple  menage  with  the  handsome  ap 
pointments  of  larger  homes. 

Half  the  people  who  feel  themselves  snubbed  by  so 
ciety  actually  are  not  snubbed,  at  all.  They  are  the 
victims  of  vain  imaginings.  They  see  slights  where  they 
are  not.  Men  and  women  of  quality  who  once  attain  a 
position  need  never  lose  it.  Let  the  blows  of  outrageous 
fortune  descend  upon  them  fast  and  thickly,  they  are 
not  on  that  account  condemned  to  isolation  unless  they 
create  it  of  themselves.  Yet,  you  hear  such  people  be 
moaning  the  fickleness  and  cruelty  of  society.  They  are 
not  invited  as  they  were.  They  are  not  sought  out  with 
the  same  eagerness  and  persistence  as  in  their  palmier 
days.  Perhaps  they  are  not  so  much  sought,  and  with 
good  reason.  Society  is  designed  to  be  happy,  light- 
hearted  and  vivacious.  It  is  not  attracted  by  the  peo 
ple  who  consider  themselves  victims.  It  keeps  no  crown 
for  the  martyr.  It  seeks  diversion  and  it  demands  that 
it  shall  be  amused.  People  who  carry  a  burden  of  grief 
and  disappointment  with  them  are  out  of  place  within 
its  folds. 

Society  is  one  vast  system  of  reciprocity.  You  enter 
tain  me  and  I  entertain  you.  This  is  nothing  more  or 
less  than  justice.  Why  should  either  man  or  woman  ex 
pect  to  receive  in  lavish  measure  when  they  make  no 
effort  to  give?  Even  the  most  charming  and  gifted 
persons  wear  out  their  welcome  in  the  course  of  time. 

93 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

The  most  generous  of  hosts  grow  weary  of  asking  the 
same  persons  over  and  over  when  the  latter  make  no 
return  in  kind. 

"I  simply  cannot  return  the  courtesies  of  wealthier 
people",  you  often  hear  a  woman  say.  Yes,  she  could 
return  them  if  she  were  not  so  hampered  by  false  pride. 
Of  course,  she  cannot  pay  off  her  obligations  in  the  coin 
of  lavish  and  sumptuous  entertainment,  but  she  can  do 
it  in  a  smaller  way.  Some  of  the  most  delightful  social 
experiences  of  a  lifetime  are  had  in  the  simplest  homes 
that  radiate  kindliness  and  generous  feeling,  where  wit 
and  humor  are  enthroned. 

It  would  be  very  fine,  of  course,  if  everybody  could 
live  in  a  mansion,  if  all  men  and  women  could  eat  off  of 
Madeira  embroidery  laid  over  mahogany  and  drink  out 
of  priceless  cups.  It  would  be  still  finer  if  all  the  people 
who  are  gifted  intellectually  and  artistically  could  have 
material  settings  appropriate  to  them.  But  since  artistic 
and  intellectual  gifts  do  not  always  bring  a  very  high 
price  in  the  market,  those  members  of  society  who  are 
poor  in  material  possessions  and  rich  in  spiritual  things 
should  give  of  their  kind  of  riches.  Men  and  women  in 
artists'  colonies  develop  a  wholesome  independence  of 
fine  homes,  floor  coverings,  furniture  and  silver  dishes. 
They  know  what  some  other  people  have  only  vaguely 
suspected — that  the  only  thing  in  this  world  of  lasting 
value  is  an  idea,  and  ideas  are  their  regular  medium  of 
exchange. 

Why  cannot  more  of  us  trust  to  our  wit  to  make  our 
homes  pleasant  and  attractive?  Wit  is  certainly  more 
satisfying  and  stimulating  than  endless  cakes  and  ice 
creams. 


HUMOR,  THE  SAVING  GRACE 

HAT  a  saving  grace  is  a  sense  of  humor !  Humor 
ous  men  and  women  are  the  flowers  of  the 
human  race.  What  matters  it  that  the  world 
never  celebrates  them  as  heroes  and  heroines? 
II  is  enough  that  they  can  be  with  us,  that  they  have  a 
genius  for  lightening  so  much  that  is  heavy,  that  they 
take  the  sting  out  of  life.  Life  would  be  unbearable 
without  the  comic  element.  We  could  not  survive  it  half 
so  long. 

It  gives  us  a  sense  of  relief  in  reading  of  a  great  event 
in  history  like  that  of  the  trial  of  Lord  Stafford,  of  his 
marvelous  speech  and  his  stirring  appeal  to  "the  saint 
of  heaven",  to  read  also  that  the  people  at  the  trial  ate 
nuts  and  apples,  talked  and  even  laughed  and  betted  on 
the  great  question  of  his  acquittal  or  condemnation. 
That  simple  human  element  in  the  trial  gives  us  a  sense 
of  relief  just  when  our  nerves  are  taut.  Nor  is  it  sur 
prising  that  some  persons  could  have  found  the  heart 
to  eat  or  bet  on  such  an  occasion,  for  the  average  mind 
cannot  stand  much  concentration.  It  must  and  will  have 
relief. 

One  of  the  secrets  of  Shakespeare's  greatness  was  the 
relieving  charm  of  his  humor.  Think  of  the  grave- 
digger's  scene  in  Hamlet  and  the  porter's  dialogue  with 
several  imaginary  persons  in  the  tragedy  of  Macbeth. 
The  person  who  is  deficient  in  humor  is  bound  to  be 
deficient  in  a  practical  knowledge  of  human  affairs.  The 
two  always  go  together.  Such  persons  know  little  and 
care  less  about  the  world  of  "cake  and  ale".  Usually 

95 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

they  are  unsympathetic  and  intolerant  and  they  take 
little,  if  any,  interest  in  "the  easy,  ordinary,  shop-keep 
ing  world ' '. 

I  cannot  understand  why  it  is  that  so  many  women  are 
lacking  in  a  sense  of  humor  unless  it  be  that  they  live 
more  solitary  lives  than  men,  and  that  they  experience 
by  no  means  so  many  contacts  with  people  and  events. 

If  all  women  had  a  sense  of  humor  a  great  many  more 
of  them  would  hold  the  love  and  interest  of  their  hus 
bands  and  there  would  be  far  less  domestic  infelicity. 
It  is  the  woman  who  has  no  sense  of  humor  that  makes 
mountains  out  of  mole-hills,  who  cries  because  her  hus 
band  goes  away  in  the  morning  without  kissing  her,  who 
imagines  that  he  no  longer  loves  her  when  he  appears  to 
be  more  interested  in  his  newspaper  than  in  her.  It  is 
the  woman  without  a  sense  of  humor  who  longs  to  parade 
her  knowledge  before  her  husband  and  her  friends.  I 
care  not  how  brainy  or  scholarly  a  man  may  be,  he  is  not 
looking  for  a  brilliant  display  of  intellectual  fireworks 
when  he  goes  home  after  a  hard  day's  work.  What  he 
wants  is  a  play  of  humor,  fun  and  brightness  and  good 
cheer.  He  wants  to  be  amused  rather  than  instructed, 
He  wants  to  forget  the  battles  of  the  day  and  the 
anxieties  of  the  morrow.  Many  a  man  has  turned  from 
a  too  heavy,  too  serious  wife  to  the  "wreathed  smiles" 
and  effervescent  spirits  of  "the  other  woman",  not  be 
cause  he  was  willing  to  be  an  unfaithful  husband,  but 
because  he  was  so  weary  of  his  wife's  ponderous  talk 
and  manner,  and  he  so  longed  for  a  taste  of  the  lighter 
side  of  life. 

If  you  have  a  sense  of  humor,  you  can  live  through 
anything.  Few  conditions  in  life  are  without  their 

96 


HUMOR,   THE   SAVING   GRACE 

funny  aspects,  and  the  person  who  can  see  the  humorous 
side  to  an  unpleasant  happening  blesses  himself  and 
everybody  else.  There  are  a  surprising  number  of 
things  in  this  world  to  laugh  at,  not  in  a  spirit  of  rid 
icule,,  not  out  of  a  superior  attitude  of  mind,  but  in  a 
good  humored  acceptance  of  life's  incongruities  and  the 
pranks  that  fate  persistently  plays. 

The  very  essence  of  true  humor  is  love.  As  Carlyle 
tells  us,  it  is  a  sort  of  inverse  sublimity,  exalting,  as  it 
were  into  our  affections  what  lies  below  us,  and  drawing 
down  gently  into  our  affections  that  which  is  above. 


97 


CAN  MEN  REFORM  WIVES? 

HE  woman  who  marries  an  ordinary  two-cylin 
der  man  and  who  by  the  exercise  of  tact  and 
patient  effort  converts  him  into  a  fine  six- 
cylinder  machine  is  one  of  the  most  interesting 
phenomena  of  modern  civilization. 

The  man  who  habitually  has  wasted  his  substance  in 
extravagant  living  is  taken  in  hand  by  a  practical  woman 
who  in  the  nicest  way  in  the  world  teaches  him  the  value 
of  thrift,  of  getting  the  most  for  his  money,  and  who 
convinces  him  of  the  wisdom  of  saving  a  part  of  his  in 
come. 

Here  is  a  man  who  did  not  enjoy  good  educational  and 
social  opportunities  in  his  youth.  His  manners  need  a 
little  polishing.  He  does  not  exactly  know  how  to  dress. 
Along  comes  a  clever  woman  who  appreciates  the  sound 
ness  of  his  character  and  who  discerns  in  him  far  greater 
possibilities  than  he  ever  has  dreamed  are  his.  With  a 
wisdom  that  is  essentially  feminine,  she  overlooks  his 
superficial  shortcomings,  and  falls  in  love  with  the  fine 
manly  spirit  that  to  the  casual  observer  may  be  obscured 
by  an  unpolished  exterior.  Within  a  few  years  after 
their  marriage  you  notice  that  the  man  has  come  out 
wonderfully,  that  he  is  beautifully  dressed,  that  his  man 
ners  are  delightful  and  that  there  is  a  new  sparkle  in 
his  eye.  Well-timed  and  skillfully  administered  sugges 
tion  have  almost  transformed  him. 

You  have  seen  a  third  type — the  man  who  never  has  ap 
peared  to  have  much  ambition.  Year  after  year  he  had 
plodded  along  and  always  in  the  same  old  rut,  More 

98 


CAN  MEN  REFORM  WIVES  t 

successful  men  regard  him  as  mediocre.  He  never  will 
get  anywhere,  they  say.  Nobody  cares  for  his  opinion. 
He  has  no  influence.  Habitually,  he  is  overlooked.  Per 
haps  he  has  reached  middle  age,  has  been  once  married, 
and  has  been  left  a  widower.  As  a  widower,  he  is  of  less 
consequence  than  ever.  Then  some  canny  little  creature 
with  a  clearer  vision  than  the  rest  sees  real  possibilities 
in  him.  Overjoyed  to  find  somebody  who  believes  in 
him,  who  perceives  elements  of  greatness  in  him,  the 
man  marries  her.  And  what  happens?  I  need  not  tell 
you,  for  you  have  seen  it  with  your  own  eyes.  The  man 
acts  as  if  he  had  drunk  of  some  powerful  elixir.  He 
takes  a  new  grip  on  his  business.  He  finds  a  delight  in 
the  society  of  his  friends.  He  begins  to  make  more 
money  than  he  ever  thought  of  making.  New  interests 
find  a  place  in  his  life  and  all  because  of  one  small  woman 
who  was  wiser  than  the  rest. 

The  transforming  effect  of  woman's  influence  when  it 
is  inspired  by  love  is  almost  a  commonplace.  Thousands 
of  men  literally  are  made  over  by  it.  Diamonds  in  the 
rough  are  polished  until  they  shine  with  a  ray  serene. 

But,  why  is  it  that  so  few  man  are  able  to  exercise  a 
civilizing  influence  upon  their  wives?  Why  is  it  that 
superior  husbands  do  not  reform  their  inferior  wives? 
Why  is  it  that  commonplace  wives  almost  invariably 
remain  commonplace  even  though  they  have  the  ad 
vantage  of  association  with  extraordinary  men? 

It  is  almost  impossible  for  a  man  to  alter  the  character, 
the  manners  and  the  habits  of  a  woman,  first,  because 
he  does  not  know  how  to  go  about  it,  and  second,  because 
women  do  not  take  so  kindly  to  criticism  and  suggestion 
as  do  most  men. 

99 


ILLUSIONS   AND    DISILLUSIONS 

When  a  man  disapproves  of  his  wife's  latest  choice  of 
millinery,  how  does  he  express  himself?  Nine  times  out 
of  ten  he  will  say  to  her  bluntly,  "what  did  you  buy 
that  hat  for?" 

What  does  a  woman  say  when  she  is  striving  to  cul 
tivate  her  husband's  taste  in  neckties?  She  will  do  one 
of  two  things  if  she  is  a  real  woman.  She  will  confiscate 
the  tie  that  does  not  suit  her  husband's  peculiar  style  of 
beauty  and  she  will  tell  him  that  it  has  been  lost,  or  that 
it  had  worn  so  shabby  that  she  gave  it  to  the  man  who 
does  the  chores.  Or,  admitting  that  the  tie  is  still  avail 
able,  she  will  say  in  her  softest  manner,  "Dearie,  don't 
you  think  this  other  one  is  much  more  becoming  to  you  ? ' ' 
Cunningly,  she  drops  a  remark  about  what  charming 
manners  Mr.  Blank  has  and  how  gracefully  he  lifts  his 
hat  and  how  pleased  his  wife  always  looks  when  he  puts 
her  in  their  car.  When  he  envies  Jones  who  had  to  pay 
an  excess  profits  tax,  she  tells  him  that  he  is  ten  times 
smarter  than  Jones,  that  his  potentialities  for  success 
are  limitless,  that  all  he  needs  in  his  business  is  more 
confidence  in  himself. 

It  is  a  feminine  gift — this  talent  for  civilizing  men 
and  giving  them  encouragement  and  inspiration  and 
bringing  them  to  a  realization  of  their  best  gifts.  Men 
have  not  the  patience,  and  they  will  not  take  the  trouble 
to  do  it  as  it  must  be  done.  Women  are  hurt  and  of 
fended  by  their  bluntness,  and  the  man  soon  discovers 
that  his  efforts  to  improve  his  wife  result  in  more  harm 
than  good. 

The  difficulty  of  a  man's  reforming  his  wife  is  in 
creased  by  her  extreme  sensitiveness.  A  woman  can 
take  criticism  from  another  woman  when  she  will  not 

100 


CAN    MEN    REFORM   WIVES? 

take  it  from  a  man.  If  a  man  tells  his  wife  that  her  hat 
is  not  becoming,  she  most  likely  will  do  one  of  three 
things.  She  will  get  mad ;  she  will  have  a  crying  fit ;  or 
she  will  ignore  her  husband's  opinion  in  the  fond  belief 
that  he  knows  nothing  about  women's  hats  and  that  on 
that  basis  his  judgment  is  negligible.  But,  if  her  sister 
or  a  woman  friend  assures  her  that  she  has  made  a  poor 
selection,  she  will  take  the  hat  back. 

In  this  way,  I  believe,  the  difference  may  be  explained. 
It  always  has  been  woman's  business  to  work  with  hu 
manity,  to  train  her  children,  to  uphold  ideals  to  her 
husband,  to  make  life  and  living  just  as  fine  and  beau 
tiful  as  she  possibly  can.  Man's  business,  on  the  con 
trary,  is  to  struggle  with  material  forces,  to  till  the 
ground,  to  produce  food,  to  span  the  river,  to  tunnel  the 
mountain,  to  establish  lines  of  transportation,  to  create 
financial  systems  and  to  institute  government.  To  ac 
complish  her  ends,  which  usually  are  spiritual,  woman 
uses  the  soft  word.  To  accomplish  his  ends,  which  usu 
ally  are  material,  man  must  strike  mightily,  and  with 
his  strong  right  arm. 


101 


WHAT  IS  TRUE  CULTURE? 

WONDER  if  the  tired  mother  and  conscientious 
housekeeper  who  seldom,  if  ever,  finds  time  for 
"cultural  activities"  realizes  that  good  house 
keeping  is  the  foundation  of  genuine  culture 
and  that  she  is  actually  doing  more  to  promote  the  cause 
of  culture  than  the  woman  who  makes  a  specialty  of  self - 
improvement  clubs. 

With  no  desire  to  disparage  culture  and  improvement 
clubs  which  have  their  proper  functions,  it  is  well  for 
women,  particularly  those  who  "go  in  for  culture"  to 
remember  that  the  process  of  self-cultivation  is  too  subtle 
a  thing  to  be  affected  by  clubs.  It  is  something  that 
grows  in  the  individual  through  environment  and  edu 
cation — it  cannot  be  suddenly  grafted  on  from  the  out 
side.  I  am  sure  that  is  what  Mr.  John  Kendrick  Bangs 
had  in  mind  when  he  said  to  me  during  a  recent  visit  that 
the  hope  of  this  country  was  not  so  much  in  its  great  in 
dustries,  its  great  wealth-producing  institutions  as  in  its 
fine,  patient  wives  and  mothers,  striving  to  do  the  utmost 
for  their  children  and  in  its  teachers,  who  with  no  hope 
of  greater  compensation  than  a  living  wage,  work  for 
the  creation  of  ideals. 

Some  of  us  have  a  queer  idea  of  what  culture  is.  Some 
of  us  imagine  that  culture  is  in  knowing  a  mezzotint 
when  you  see  it  instead  of  being  wise  in  ways  that  help 
people  to  live  decently  and  comfortably.  Some  of  us 
imagine  that  culture  resides  in  knowing  how  many  wives 
Henry  VIII  had  instead  of  knowing  how  to  bake  a  good 
loaf  of  bread,  in  being  able  to  chatter  glibly  about  the 

102 


WHAT   IS  TRUE   CULTURE? 

poets  of  the  Renaissance  period,  instead  of  having 
mastered  the  art  of  laying  an  attractive  table,  of  being 
on  speaking  terms  with  the  modern  drama,  rather  than 
in  cultivating  a  fine  cheerful  spirit  or  a  charming  speak 
ing  voice. 

Every  woman  in  this  world  can  be  "cultured"  though 
she  never  attended  college  or  belonged  to  a  culture  club. 
The  truly  cultured  woman  is  not  the  restless  seeker  after 
new  distractions,  but  the  woman  who  keeps  a  clean 
house,  who  puts  good  food  on  her  table,  who  with  a  gen 
tle  voice  speaks  correct  English,  and  who  does  not  save 
up  her  good  manners  for  ' '  society ' ',  but  exhibits  them  in 
her  home.  There  is  more  culture  in  a  well  arranged 
table,  laid  with  clean  linen  and  china  and  bright  silver, 
with  perhaps  a  single  flower  in  the  center  than  in  all  the 
"culture  movements"  in  the  world.  There  is  more  cul 
ture  in  a  neat  person,  than  in  all  the  opinions  concern 
ing  world  affairs  that  a  woman  can  collect.  There  is 
more  culture  in  sweetness  and  amiability  and  refined 
ways  than  in  a  knowledge  of  a  dozen  systems  of  phil 
osophy.  There  is  more  culture  in  knowing  the  meaning 
of  Millet's  "Gleaners"  in  understanding  the  struggle  of 
those  three  figures,  the  quick-moving  girl,  the  slower 
woman  and  the  stiff -backed  grandmother,  all  striving  to 
ward  off  hunger,  than  in  owning  the  original.  There 
is  more  culture  in  knowing  and  practicing  the  simple 
laws  of  hygiene  than  in  covering  up  physical  disintegra 
tion  by  artificial  means. 

A  pretty  good  place  to  take  a  survey  of  American  cul 
ture  is  the  dressing  room  of  a  Pullman  car.  All  you 
have  to  do  is  to  take  a  glance  at  your  traveling  sister's 
personal  belongings,  at  the  condition  in  which  she  leaves 

103 


ILLUSIONS  AND   DISILLUSIONS 

the  wash-basin  for  the  woman  who  is  to  follow  her,  at 
the  way  she  tosses  soiled  towels  on  the  floor,  at  the  care 
lessness  with  which  she  smears  her  make-up  all  over  the 
place.  If  personal  habits  are  not  an  indication  of  one's 
degree  of  culture,  I  do  not  know  what  criterion  we  have. 

What  is  a  cultured  home  ?  Is  it  not  the  home  in  which 
character  and  habits  of  refinement  are  formed?  Is  it 
not  the  home  in  which  the  children  are  taught  to  be  hon 
est  ?  Is  it  not  the  home  from  which  the  man  of  the  fam 
ily  is  ashamed  to  go  out  and  play  a  mean  business  trick 
upon  his  competitor,  or  make  a  dirty  dollar  by  the  exer 
cise  of  his  brain?  Is  it  not  the  home  where  kindness  is 
the  keynote  and  where  quarreling  and  bickering  are  re 
garded  as  unspeakably  vulgar? 

Culture,  friends,  is  in  the  substance,  not  the  shadow. 
It  resides  in  all  fine  and  useful  effort,  rather  than  in 
what  some  misguided  persons  are  pleased  to  call  "ele 
gant  leisure".  And  this  I  would  like  to  impress  upon 
all  men  and  women — culture  is  not  to  be  had  at  the  ex 
pense  of  some  fellow-being  who  works  for  two  that  one 
may  loaf. 


104 


MEASURING  WOMAN'S  SUCCESS 

HAT  constitutes  a  woman's  success?  Is  it  social 
eminence?  Is  it  conspicuous  achievement  in 
business,  artistic,  professional  or  political  life? 
Or  does  the  most  substantial  success  come  to 
the  loving  and  beloved  woman,  who  makes  it  her  supreme 
office  to  cheer,  encourage  and  inspire?  Is  the  most  suc 
cessful  woman  she  who  is  ever  ready  with  her  sympathy, 
who  possesses  exquisite  refinement,  unfailing  good 
humor,  charming  courtesy  and  grace  in  an  infinite  va 
riety  ? 

As  we  look  over  all  the  women  of  our  acquaintance, 
does  it  not  seem  that  there  are  too  many  who  deem  it 
enough  to  go  out  in  the  world  just  as  a  man  does,  and 
make  for  themselves  a  considerable  worldly  success  ?  One 
woman  possessed  of  business  sagacity  may  open  a  store, 
buy  and  sell  industriously,  and  at  the  end  of  the  year, 
have  a  very  tidy  profit.  Another  may  become  an  expert 
private  secretary.  A  third  may  study  law  or  medicine, 
and  rise  in  one  of  those  professions.  A  fourth  gifted 
with  remarkable  talent  for  music  attains  international 
fame.  The  number  of  womem  who  are  achieving  success 
in  political  life  constantly  is  increasing.  There  are 
women  authors  and  women  artists.  There  are  women 
devoting  themselves  to  science.  There  are  women  trav 
eling  to  sell  goods. 

The  majority  of  these  women  long  to  be  successful  as 
women — there  are  only  a  few  who  don't  care  about  that. 
Yet,  a  great  many  of  those  same  women  are  losing  sight 
of  a  fact  which  is  quite  obvious  to  men,  that  is,  that 

105 


ILLUSIONS  AND  DISILLUSIONS 

there  are  certain  separate  and  distinct  feminine  attri 
butes  which  enter  into  the  making  of  the  womanly 
woman.  They  fail  to  appreciate  the  value  of  womanly 
graces.  This  lack  of  appreciation  they  betray  in  their 
voice,  their  language,  their  manners  and  their  dress. 
They  do  not  intend  to  allow  themselves  to  become  hard 
ened — they  merely  drift  with  the  tide  of  modern  influ 
ences  and  events. 

No  woman  could  ever  afford  to  neglect  the  womanly 
graces.  She  can  afford  that  neglect  less  than  ever  today 
when  her  life  is  cast  so  frequently  in  places  where  com 
petition  is  imminent,  where  keen  commercial  sagacity 
tends  to  displace  womanly  tenderness,  and  intellectual 
precision  is  too  often  cultivated  at  the  expense  of  the 
qualities  of  the  heart.  A  manner  of  brisk  efficiency  does 
very  well  in  business,  but  it  ought  to  be  taken  off  and 
put  away  with  one 's  street  hat — it  is  anything  but  charm 
ing  when  it  is  carried  into  private  life. 

Is  it  not  significant  that  we  have  not  today  any  great 
and  immortal  heroines  in  fiction  such  as  were  created  by 
Shakespeare  and  Sir  Walter  Scott?  Shakespeare  wrote 
only  two  or  three  plays  that  did  not  have  one  perfect 
woman  in  them.  He  gave  us  a  score  of  exquisite  char 
acterizations — Rosalind,  Desdemonia,  Hermione,  Imogen, 
Silvia,  Viola,  Helena  and  Virgilia — all  conceived  in  the 
mold  of  a  queenly  womanhood.  Sir  Walter  Scott  gave 
us  for  our  everlasting  delight  and  refreshment  such 
lovely  feminine  characters  as  Ellen  Douglas,  Diana  Ver- 
non,  Lilias  Bedgauntlet,  Jeanie  Deans  and  Flora  Mclvor 
— all  of  whom  he  invested  with  the  highest  qualities  of 
gentle  womanhood.  Our  writers,  it  is  true,  draw  for  us 
many  portraits  of  lovely  women,  but  they  do  not  give  us 

106 


MEASURING  WOMAN'S  SUCCESS 

such  vital  characterizations.  Is  it  that  they  have  not 
such  great  powers  of  interpretation  ?  Is  it  because  they 
cannot  find  the  same  inspiration  in  the  noblest  women 
of  our  day  ?  Or  can  it  be  that  as  the  world  has  grown, 
exquisite  womanly  characters  have  become  so  numerous 
that  they  no  longer  attract  attention  ? 

Certainly  we  would  like  to  accept  the  third  supposi 
tion  as  that  which  is  nearest  the  truth.  And  if  it  be  so, 
it  is  the  greater  tribute  to  woman  since  it  is  no  easy 
task  for  her  to  keep  herself  charming  when  she  is  sur 
rounded  with  so  many  harsh,  material  influences.  There 
is  no  use  denying  the  fact  that  all  playing  at  precedence, 
whether  it  be  social,  political,  professional  or  commercial, 
does  not  incline  women  to  the  cultivation  of  the  purely 
feminine  graces.  Fighting  for  worldly  advantage, 
struggling  to  win  the  almighty  dollar  is  likely  to  be  any 
thing  but  a  softening  process.  Rather  does  it  tend  to 
confirm  the  best  of  women  in  habits  of  thought  and  man 
ner  that  savor  too  strongly  of  the  market-place.  There 
is  danger,  too,  of  arrogance  among  commercially  or  pro 
fessionally  successful  women,  whom  you  sometimes  hear 
speaking  of  love  with  contempt.  This  arrogance  of  self- 
sufficiency  is  very  foolish,  very  unlovely.  It  is  a  terrible 
menace  to  the  woman-soul. 

How  are  we  women  going  to  meet  and  ward  off  these 
unfortunate  influences?  By  remembering  that  affection 
is  woman's  first  grace,  that  refinement  is  her  first  duty, 
that  the  power  to  cheer  is  her  greatest  privilege. 

More  good  men  and  children  go  wrong  from  the  lack 
of  affection  at  home  than  all  other  causes  put  together. 
Harsh  words  have  made  many  a  drunkard  and  criminal. 
Lack  of  sympathy  and  understanding  have  sent  many 

107 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

a  young  girl  to  her  fall.  When  a  woman  has  the  grace 
of  affection  and  she  lavishes  it  upon  her  menfolk,  she 
gives  them  something  bigger  than  any  bank  accounts 
they  can  accumulate.  When  she  lavishes  it  wisely  upon 
her  children,  she  can  defeat  the  most  malignant  influ 
ences.  And,  if  it  were  not  for  the  innate  refinement  of 
women,  this  world  would  still  be  inhabited  by  barbaric 
hordes. 

If  a  woman's  family  and  intimate  friends  cannot  look 
to  her  for  sympathy,  gentleness,  cheerfulness  and  in 
spiration  ;  if  she  is  not  the  soul  of  refinement ;  if  she  does 
not  possess  that  endless  variety  of  graces  which  we  like 
to  think  of  as  synonymous  with  queenly  womanhood — 
then  she  is  a  failure  as  a  woman,  however  successful  she 
may  be  in  other  ways. 


108 


IP  YOU  COULD  LIVE  AGAIN 

|  HEY  were  speculating  upon  what  they  would 
do  if  they  had  their  lives  to  live  over — a  group 
of  a  half  dozen  women,  all  well  enough  ac 
quainted  to  speak  without  restraint.  Who  of 
us  has  not  wished  for  an  opportunity  to  live  again 
in  the  light  of  mature  wisdom  and  experience?  Which 
one  of  us  does  not  sometimes  feel  regret  over  some  folly 
of  our  youth,  which  we  would  not  have  committed  had 
we  known  better.  Futile  longing  though  it  is,  we  would 
all  like  to  have  that  one  more  opportunity  to  work  out 
our  destiny  and  we  are  sure  that  we  would  do  it  much 
more  successfully,  if  the  chance  were  only  ours. 

"If  I  had  my  life  to  live  over,  I  would  not  be  in  such 
haste  to  marry",  said  one — and  what  a  common  com 
plaint  is  that!  "I  would  try  to  know  the  man  thor 
oughly  before  I  cast  my  lot  with  his.  I  would  restrain 
my  emotions  long  enough  to  let  my  head  make  the  deci 
sion.  I  am  a  believer  in  long  engagements.  They  are 
not  always  favorable  to  marriage  and  so  much  the  better, 
for  if  an  attachment  will  not  stand  the  test  of  a  long 
betrothal,  it  will  not  stand  the  longer  and  greater  test 
of  married  life.  More  restrictions  should  be  thrown 
about  marriage.  It  is  much  too  easy  to  get  a  license  and 
find  a  minister  who  will  tie  the  knot.  Letting  my  heart 
run  away  with  my  judgment  has  been  the  great  mistake 
of  my  life". 

"I  can  trace  about  nine-tenths  of  all  my  sorrows  and 
mistakes  to  snobbish  notions  of  my  youth",  declared  the 
second  woman  in  the  group.  "I  seem  to  have  been 

109 


ILLUSIONS  AND   DISILLUSIONS 

reared  on  a  false  sense  of  values.  I  was  always  looking 
for  the  glittering,  showy  thing,  not  the  real  substance  of 
life.  I  believe  this  snobbish  tendency  was  first  en 
gendered  in  me  by  my  mother,  who  if  she  made  a  gar 
ment  for  me  would  warn  me  not  to  let  that  fact  be 
come  known.  I  grew  up  believing  that  the  only  people 
worth  knowing  were  those  prominent  in  society  and  those 
who  had  plenty  of  money  to  spend.  Worldly  success, 
both  social  and  financial,  was  the  one  aim  and  goal  of 
my  life.  A  loss  of  everything  I  had  once  deemed  in 
valuable — money,  position,  the  flattering  attentions  of 
society — has  made  me  a  wiser  woman  than  I  was.  The 
very  things  of  which  I  was  formerly  so  enamored  have 
very  little  attraction  for  me  now.  I  have  learned  that  a 
good  many  people  of  similar  ambition  live  with  much 
profit  to  the  dressmaker,  the  florist,  the  caterer,  the  mil 
liner  and  the  confectioner,  but  with  very  little  profit  to 
themselves.  False  standards  of  living,  set  up  by  snob 
bishness,  have  undermined  many  an  otherw/se  sound 
character.  They  discount  genuineness,  and  place  a  pre 
mium  upon  the  superficial.  I  have  outgrown  that  kind 
of  folly  and  have  begun  my  life  all  over  again.  I  have 
found  peace  in  the  discharge  of  simple  duty,  and  happi 
ness  in  the  quiet  ways  of  home." 

"My  greatest  regret  is  that  I  did  not  take  advantage 
of  my  opportunity  to  secure  a  good  education  when  it 
was  presented  to  me",  said  the  third  woman.  "In  my 
girlhood  I  was  so  obsessed  with  the  desire  to  have  a  good 
time  that  I  never  suspected  the  day  might  come  when  I 
would  need  a  sound  education.  As  a  result  of  my  folly, 
I  am  now  striving  to  grasp  certain  fundamentals  I 
should  have  mastered  in  my  youth.  I  am  trying  to  ac- 

110 


IF  YOU   COULD   LIVE  AGAIN 

quire  mental  habits  that  should  have  become  second 
nature  to  me  when  I  was  no  more  than  20  years  old.  I 
am  doing  the  very  thing  I  was  sure  I  would  not  do.  I 
am  earning  my  living.  If  I  had  seized  every  chance  for 
self-improvement  as  I  was  maturing,  life  would  be  a 
good  deal  easier  for  me  now." 

"If  I  had  my  life  to  live  over  again,  I  would  have  gra 
ciously  accepted  Destiny  as  she  was  revealed  to  me",  de 
clared  the  fourth  speaker.  "I  would  have  taken  her 
hand  and  walked  with  her  instead  of  resisting  her  with 
all  my  might.  For  years  I  exhausted  my  strength  trying 
to  out-general  her.  I  seared  my  mind  and  wasted  my 
body  trying  to  make  her  dance  to  my  tune.  I  spent  my 
youth  devouring  biographies  of  the  great  and  near-great, 
and  reading  books  on  self-mastery  and  the  conquest  of 
fate.  Resolved  that  I  would  conquer  the  world  and  my 
own  destiny,  I  sweat  blood  in  a  series  of  futile  efforts. 
In  my  violence  I  almost  destroyed  myself.  But  since  I 
have  made  a  friend  instead  of  an  antagonist  of  destiny, 
I  feel  that  I  am  beginning  to  make  a  little  progress  and 
I  am  much  happier  than  I  ever  have  been." 

What  can  we  get  from  these  four  human  stories  ?  Just 
this — that  we  cannot  think,  feel  or  act  at  20  as  we  will 
at  40 — and  learning  how  to  live  is  what  life  is  for. 


Ill 


MISTAKEN  SELF-SACRIFICE 

|NE  of  those  dear  mothers  who  longs  to  sacrifice 
everything  to  the  happiness  of  her  children 
has  written  to  me  that  with  the  high  cost  of 
commodities  she  has  been  unable  to  buy  a 
spring  hat  and  she  has  not  so  much  as  an  old  shape  she 
could  trim  up. 

"After  buying  organdie  dresses,  slippers  and  ribbons 
for  my  two  girls",  she  says,  "there  is  absolutely  nothing 
left  for  me.  Because  I  have  no  hat,  I  am  forced  to  stay 
at  home.  I  cannot  accept  any  kind  of  invitation,  and  I 
cannot  even  go  to  church",  she  comments  pathetically. 

In  her  desire  to  be  unselfish,  what  a  mistake  this 
mother  makes!  Cannot  she  realize  that  the  mother  is 
the  head  of  the  family,  that  she  must  take  precedence 
over  her  daughters,  that  a  hat  for  herself  is  a  necessity, 
while  organdie  dresses  and  pretty  slippers  and  ribbons 
fall  into  the  luxury  class  ? 

Time  after  time  we  have  seen  mothers  go  shabby  in 
order  to  deck  out  their  daughters  like  young  princesses, 
and  what  has  been  the  result? 

The  daughters  in  their  youthful  ignorance,  naturally 
enough  reach  the  conclusion  that  they  are  superior  to 
their  mothers,  that  good  clothes  are  their  proper  due, 
regardless  of  how  their  mothers  dress. 

Now,  this  one  foolish  assumption  would  be  unfortunate 
enough  in  itself,  if  no  other  evil  resulted  from  a  mother's 
mistaken  policy  of  abject  self-sacrifice.  But  as  things  go 
in  this  world,  a  whole  train  of  little  evils  grow  out  of  a 
girl's  idea  that  she  is  better  than  her  mother.  Very  eas- 

112 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

ily,  she  falls  into  the  way  of  thinking  that  her  mother 
does  not  need  suitable  clothes,  that  it  is  quite  the  proper 
thing  for  her  mother  to  stay  at  home  from  a  tea  or  a 
luncheon,  a  meeting  of  her  club  or  a  gathering  in  her 
church.  She  solaces  herself  with  the  reflection  that  her 
mother  has  had  her  day,  that  she,  the  young  woman  is 
entitled  to  the  right  of  way  in  all  matters  of  family  ex 
penditure,  that  there  is  nothing  essentially  improper  or 
unnatural  about  her  being  a  lily  of  the  field  while  her 
mother  toils  and  spins. 

When  a  mother  once  permits  her  daughter  to  lose  re 
spect  for  her,  the  girl,  unless  she  possesses  a  good  deal  of 
innate  refinement  and  nobility  of  character,  is  likely  to 
speak  disrespectfully  to  her  mother  and  to  treat  her 
mother  with  unconcern.  Heartless  impudence  has  fallen 
to  the  lot  of  many  an  over-indulgent  mother,  who  out  of 
a  foolish  desire  to  see  her  daughter  beautifully  gowned 
and  having  the  opportunity  to  move  in  a  circle  to  which 
the  family  has  not  been  accustomed,  just  because  she  has 
deliberately  accepted  the  position  of  an  inferior  in  her 
own  family,  and  has  permitted  herself  to  be  snubbed. 
"How  sharper  than  a  serpent's  tooth"  becomes  the  bur 
den  of  her  thinking,  after  the  damage  has  been  done, 
when  it  is  too  late  to  recall  the  daughter  to  a  proper 
sense  of  values  in  the  relation  that  she  bears  to  her 
mother,  and  when  she  has  become  so  accustomed  to 
dressing  beyond  and  above  her  station  that  she  no 
longer  can  be  satisfied  with  simpler  and  more  appropri 
ate  clothes. 

All  children  want  to  be  proud  of  their  parents. 

"Mother,  how  pretty  you  look  tonight!" 

It  is  with  a  heart  swelling  with  pride  that  a  child  looks 
113 


MISTAKEN   SELF-SACRIFICE 

upon  the  mother,  who  for  some  special  occasion  has 
donned  a  new  frock,  or  has  taken  greater  pains  than 
usual  with  her  toilette.  Bitterness  and  shame  have 
silently  eaten  their  way  into  many  a  childish  heart  be 
cause  father  and  mother  were  careless  about  their  ap 
pearance,  because  it  did  not  seem  to  matter  to  them  how 
they  looked  to  other  eyes. 

Mothers  who  go  shabby  to  deck  out  their  daughters, 
cheat  those  very  same  daughters  out  of  a  child's  dearest 
source  of  pride — the  pride  they  feel  in  their  mothers, 
their  desire  to  see  their  own  mothers  stand  favorable 
comparison  with  the  mothers  of  other  girls. 

Nothing  means  so  much  to  a  normal  child  as  to  be 
proud  of  a  parent.  During  the  life  of  the  parent,  it  is 
a  never-ending  source  of  filial  satisfaction,  and  it  is  a 
beautiful  memory  after  death. 

Mothers — don't  buy  organdies  and  ribbons  for  your 
daughters  and  go  without  decent  hats  and  dresses  for 
yourselves.  If  you  do,  you  will  surely  rue  the  day  you 
were  so  foolish.  Not  only  will  you  lose  the  respect  of 
your  children,  and  possibly  your  husband's,  but  you 
will  forfeit  the  respect  of  your  neighbors  and  friends. 


114 


THE  ART  OF  GROWING  OLD 

OCCASIONALLY   you    see    an    elderly   man   or 
woman  so  interesting  and  so  interested  in  what 
is  going  on  today,  so  cheerful  and  buoyant,  so 
charming  of  manner,  attractively  and  appro 
priately  dressed,  that  you  wonder  why  everyone  in  the 
world  cannot  grow  old  gracefully. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  to  grow  old  gracefully,  you  have 
to  begin  when  you  are  young.  Growing  old  gracefully  is 
like  learning  a  trade,  acquiring  a  profession  or  getting 
an  education — it  is  not  a  thing  to  be  attained  in  a  few 
weeks,  months  or  even  years,  and  it  is  extremely  difficult 
when  it  is  begun  late  in  life.  Every  time  I  hear  young 
people  bewailing  the  disagreeable  habits  of  their  elders, 
and  criticizing  the  irritable  tempers  of  the  old  people 
in  their  family  circle,  justifiable  as  their  criticisms  may 
be,  I  cannot  help  wondering  if  they  too,  may  not  be 
forming  habits  of  mind,  manner  and  speech  which  event 
ually  will  render  them  tiresome  and  disagreeable  persons 
when  they  reach  old  age. 

The  secret  of  growing  old  gracefully  is  to  build  a 
beautiful  and  gracious  character  during  the  days  of 
one 's  youth  and  maturity.  The  pretty  young  girl  whose 
jealousy  and  envy  of  her  associates  vents  itself  in  sharp 
criticism  of  their  dress  and  conduct,  position  and  posses 
sions;  the  middle-aged  woman  who  gossips  disagreeably 
and  rolls  every  bit  of  scandal  she  can  hear  like  a  sweet 
morsel  under  her  tongue;  the  man  who  swears  at  the 
slightest  provocation,  who  is  irritable  and  captious,  who 

115 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

commits  little  mean,  treacherous  acts — all  of  these  are 
preparing  for  an  old  age  that  will  be  hypercritical,  fault 
finding,  censorious,  and  unappreciative.  For  every  time 
they  indulge  themselves  in  an  unkind  act,  in  an  ugly 
humor,  they  are  approaching  just  one  step  nearer  to  the 
goal  of  an  unloved  and  unlovely  old  age. 

We  have  a  right,  I  believe,  to  expect  elderly  men  and 
women  to  be  the  most  tenderly  appealing,  the  most 
reassuring,  the  most  comforting,  the  most  kindly  and 
tolerant  persons  of  earth.  They  have  passed  by  that 
time  when  the  hyenas  of  passion  tore  them.  They  have 
fought  life's  many  battles,  sometimes  to  win,  sometimes 
to  lose.  They  have  known  sorrow  and  grief  and  disap 
pointment.  They  have  experienced  happiness  and  tri 
umph  and  success.  They  have  dodged  death  and  they 
have  conquered  sickness.  They  have  seen  life  ebb  and 
ebb  and  finally  flicker  out  in  their  dearest,  and  their  tears 
have  fallen  into  open  graves.  They  have  known  love's 
disillusionment  and  love's  realization.  They  have  spent 
sleepless  nights  and  joyous  days.  They  have  striven  to 
the  very  utmost  of  human  striving,  if  they  were  men 
and  women  of  ambition  and  aspiration.  They  have  seen 
the  very  structures  they  built  with  so  much  labor  crum 
ble  and  fall  at  their  feet.  Knowing  life  as  they  must 
know  it,  how  it  is  possible  that  they  can  be  otherwise 
than  sympathetic  and  understanding  and  charitable? 
To  no  human  souls  do  we  turn  with  such  yearning  for 
sympathy  and  reassurance  as  to  older  men  and  women. 
Yet,  how  often  do  they  offer  us  the  stones  of  folly  and 
sarcasm  and  complaining  and  bitterness  when  we  hoped 
for  the  bread  of  wisdom  and  kindness,  the  comforting 
and  reassuring  word. 

116 


THE  ART   OP   GROWING   OLD 

Is  the  idea  of  swelling  the  ranks  of  disagreeable,  un 
loved,  unwanted  old  folk  abhorrent  to  you? 

Then,  you  must  begin  early  to  cultivate  a  life-long 
habit  of  generous  and  thoughtful  consideration  of  every 
body  with  whom  you  come  in  contact. 

Beauty,  brilliancy,  talent,  power,  position,  money  will 
stand  you  in  hand  when  you  are  young.  The  world  will 
forgive  you  many  disagreeable  and  unlovely  traits  of 
character  and  ugly  habits  so  long  as  you  have  your 
youthful  strength  and  magnetism.  But  it  won't  for 
give  you  when  old  age  takes  possession  of  you,  and  you 
have  nothing  better  to  give  than  material  things. 

It  is  all  very  well  to  talk  about  revering  old  people, 
but  reverence  is  not  prompted  or  governed  by  a  sense 
of  duty.  True  reverence  for  the  elderly  and  delight  in 
their  presence  can  spring  only  from  such  sentiments  of 
love  and  loyalty  and  admiration  as  they,  by  their  kind 
hearts,  gracious  manners  and  good  breeding,  can  in 
spire  in  us. 


117 


A  FORTUNE  IN  FRIENDS 

E  FRIENDS  with  everybody".  Such  is  the 
advice  Charles  M.  Schwab  gave  the  students 
of  Princeton  University  when  he  stood  be 
fore  them  and  pointed  them  to  the  way  of 
building  a  successful  life. 

"When  you  have  friends",  he  said,  "you  know  there 
is  somebody  who  will  stand  by  you.  You  know  the  old 
saying  that  if  you  have  a  single  enemy  you  will  find  Mm 
everywhere.  It  doesn't  pay  to  make  enemies.  Lead  the 
life  that  will  make  you  kindly  and  friendly  to  everybody 
about  you,  and  you  will  be  surprised  at  what  a  happy  life 
you  will  live." 

Most  of  us  think  too  little  about  the  value  of  making 
friends.  When  I  write  these  words,  I  do  not  mean  that 
we  should  start  out  with  the  idea  that  we  are  going  to 
make  friends  whom  we  can  use  for  our  own  selfish  pur 
poses,  for  if  we  do  that  we  soon  will  be  found  out,  and 
we  will  have  no  friends  at  all.  We  all  know  certain  men 
who  have  made  a  business  of  cultivating  those  persons 
whom  they  believe  will  be  useful  to  them,  and  how  few 
friendships  such  men  enjoy.  If  we  want  to  make  friends 
we  should  go  about  it  in  the  hope  of  adding  something 
to  the  sum  total  of  this  world's  happiness,  and  not  with 
the  idea  of  securing  selfish  benefits  for  ourselves. 

However,  the  fine  things  that  may  come  to  us  through 
the  friendships  we  establish  are  not  to  be  minimized. 

Have  you  ever  noticed  that  it  is  the  man  who  has  the 
ability  to  make  friends  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
people  who  is  sought  out  by  big  business  institutions  and 

118 


A   FORTUNE  IN   FRIENDS 

is  entrusted  with  an  important  place?  That  man  may 
know  absolutely  nothing  about  that  particular  line  of 
business.  But,  the  men  who  seek  him  consider  his  lack 
of  technical  knowledge  unimportant.  That  is  something 
he  can  acquire.  It  is  for  his  fine,  rich  personality  that 
the  business  wants  him.  Where  at  the  start  his  tech 
nical  knowledge  may  be  negligible,  his  faculty  for  draw 
ing  men  to  him  will  be  worth  many  thousands  of  dollars 
to  the  firm.  And  have  you  ever  noticed  that  it  is  the 
woman  who  creates  an  atmosphere  of  friendliness  about 
her  who  is  in  demand  on  all  occasions?  She  may  not 
have  very  much  money,  and  she  may  have  only  two  or 
three  gowns,  but  she  knows  how  to  make  others  happy, 
and  that  is  what  this  world  really  wants. 

It  is  worth  while  to  give  a  little  thought  to  those  per 
sons  who  make  friends  wherever  they  go.  It  is  worth 
while  noticing  that  they  nearly  always  wear  happy  ex 
pressions,  which  is  merely  the  outward,  visible  sign  of 
their  goodness  of  heart.  When  they  shake  hands  with 
you,  they  do  it  heartily — they  do  not  offer  you  a  cold, 
clammy,  listless  palm.  There  is  a  ring  of  sincerity  in 
their  cordial  words  of  greeting.  There  is  a  sort  of  aura 
of  amity  about  them  which  you  sense  instantly.  You 
are  warmed,  comforted,  even  electrified  in  their  pres 
ence.  No  matter  how  weary  or  distracted  you  may  have 
been  feeling,  after  basking  in  the  glow  of  their  friend 
liness,  you  say  to  yourself,  "What  a  good  world  this  is, 
after  all". 

In  some  periods  of  the  lives  of  all  of  us,  we  stand  in 
sore  need  of  friends.  We  are  stricken  with  sickness. 
We  lose  our  money.  We  face  a  crisis  in  our  domestic 
affairs  or  in  our  business  life.  The  ones  that  we  love 

119 


ILLUSIONS  AND   DISILLUSIONS 

best  become  afflicted,  or  they  are  taken  from  us.  Then, 
friendship  comes  to  allay  our  sorrows,  to  lighten  our 
oppressions,  to  dispel  our  doubts,  to  clarify  our  troubled 
minds.  And  when  friendship  does  so  lift  the  burden, 
what  an  unspeakable  blessing  we  know  it  to  be.  Any 
thing,  everything  seems  endurable,  and  we  take  a  new 
grip  on  life. 

Don't  wait  to  accumulate  a  fortune  before  you  begin 
to  make  friends.  Don't  postpone  it  until  you  have  se 
cured  a  certain  amount  of  leisure.  Don 't  put  it  off  until 
you  become  prosperous  or  prominent — for  in  the  mean 
time  your  heart  may  dry  up.  Just  take  the  opportuni 
ties  that  come  to  you  in  the  course  of  your  daily  living 
to  smile,  to  say  a  kind  and  encouraging  word,  to  render 
some  little  personal  service,  to  express  some  appreciation, 
to  radiate  a  love  of  all  people.  An  open,  lovable  soul, 
a  rich  heart,  a  kindly  feeling  toward  everybody  will 
make  you  a  millionaire  in  friendships  though  you  may 
have  less  money  than  anyone  that  you  know. 


120 


LOOKING  UP  INTO  THE  SKY 

0  YOU  ever  lie  down  on  the  grass  and  look  up 
into  the  sky?  If  you  don't,  you  are  missing 
that  which  would  do  your  heart  and  soul  good. 
Looking  up  into  the  vastness  of  blue  heaven  is 
one  way  of  escaping  sharp  trouble  and  slow  anxiety. 
With  most  of  us,  looking  up  into  the  sky  is  a  lost  art. 
As  we  go  about  our  business,  we  either  keep  our  eyes  on 
the  earth,  or  look  straight  ahead.  Days,  weeks  and 
months  may  pass  without  our  once  turning  our  glance 
upward,  which  is  the  worst  of  all  possible  ways  to  live. 
Things  would  go  better  in  this  world  if  more  of  us 
would  take  an  occasional  view  of  the  sky.  Looking  up 
into  the  sky  will  do  two  things  to  you.  Its  vastness  re 
minds  you  of  the  smallness  of  the  world  and  the  passing 
value  of  mundane  things.  Suddenly,  you  realize  how 
narrow  has  been  your  human  vision,  how  cramped  and 
prejudiced  your  mind.  Then  it  comes  to  you  that  you 
cannot  keep  a  fair  perspective  if  you  persist  in  keeping 
your  eyes  on  the  earth,  on  the  quarrels  and  contests  of 
equally  prejudiced  human  beings,  and  never  turn  your 
eyes  heavenward. 

The  second  thing  that  looking  into  the  sky  can  do  for 
you  is  to  stimulate  your  imagination,  and  imagination 
as  we  know,  is  the  transmuting  force  of  the  world. 
Imagination,  combined  with  reason,  is  the  basis  of  in 
vention.  The  Wright  brothers  had  to  imagine  an  airship 
before  they  could  start  to  build  one.  It  was  necessary 
for  Fulton  to  imagine  a  steamboat  before  he  could  get 
one  under  way.  In  imagination  the  child  plans  what  he 

121 


ILLUSIONS  AND  DISILLUSIONS 

will  do  when  he  grows  to  man's  estate.  The  young  girl 
imagines  how  she  will  leave  her  home,  either  to  marry  or 
follow  a  career.  Actors,  writers  and  artists  always  are 
living  in  imagination  that  time  when  they  will  have 
captivated  the  world.  They  study  and  work.  They 
labor  until  body  and  brain  are  numb.  They  forget 
passing  pleasure  and  material  advantage.  They  sacrifice 
everything  for  that  future  goal  which  they  can  see  so 
vividly  far  away  though  it  may  be.  The  politician 
imagines  himself  a  great  statesman.  The  mother  dreams 
of  what  her  children  will  attain  at  some  future  day. 
Those  who  never  grow  weary  of  looking  skyward  are 
those  that  finally  reach  the  pot  of  gold  at  the  rainbow's 
end.  It  is  the  dispirited  soul,  he  who  succumbs  to  his 
weariness  and  who  forgets  that  he  may  look  skyward 
that  droops  and  finally  fails. 

A  reporter  of  the  peace  conference  attributes  Lloyd 
George's  strength  at  the  peace  table  and  his  amazing 
success  in  enforcing  Great  Britain's  claims  to  the  fact 
that  he  occasionally  slipped  away  from  Paris,  crossed 
the  channel,  traveled  to  his  rural  villa  and  for  several 
days  lay  on  the  ground,  looked  up  at  the  sky — and 
thought.  When  he  returned  to  Paris,  his  body  refreshed, 
his  mind  having  a  clearer  view  of  the  situation,  he  was 
a  match  for  them  all.  Certain  other  representatives  at 
the  peace  table,  who  never  withdrew  for  an  hour's  re 
pose,  or  better  still  to  look  up  into  the  sky,  became  con 
fused  and  lost  ground.  If  you  will  watch  the  best  busi 
ness  men  in  this  country,  and  the  best  politicians,  you 
will  notice  that  they  give  themselves  a  chance  to  think 
things  over,  to  right  themselves,  even  though  they  take 
some  other  method  than  looking  up  into  the  sky. 

122 


LOOKING   UP   INTO   THE   SKY 

If  the  haunting  dread  of  possible  failure  visits  you — 
lie  down  on  the  grass  and  look  up  into  the  sky.  Your 
spirits  are  bound  to  revive  and  your  sense  of  proportion 
will  be  restored.  I  believe  that  the  sky  is  that  part  of 
creation  which  the  God  of  nature  made  for  the  purpose 
of  comforting  and  inspiring  man.  I  believe  that  men 
would  incline  more  to  justice,  that  they  would  try  to 
be  more  scrupulous  and  compassionate,  if  once  in  a 
while  they  would  lift  their  eyes  to  the  skies.  You  can 
hardly  turn  your  eyes  from  the  earth  to  the  heavens 
without  thinking  of  your  future,  what  you  will  have  to 
take  with  you  to  the  next  world,  and  how  you  will  enter 
upon  your  life  there. 

Sensitive  persons  who  long  to  find  life  more  lovely  and 
harmonious  may  temporarily  escape  the  clogging  condi 
tions  of  their  existence  by  looking  up  into  the  sky. 
Those  who  are  harassed  and  worried  will  find  in  its  blue 
infinity  a  blessed  ecstacy  of  peace.  Those  who  strive  and 
struggle  for  perfection  will  have  their  hopes  renewed. 

You  hardly  can  look  at  the  sky  without  realizing  the 
folly  of  being  selfish,  greedy,  treacherous  or  spiteful  and 
without  seeing  at  the  same  time  the  beauty  in  noble  con 
duct,  in  a  kindly,  sweet-tempered  life.  The  horror  of 
sordid  living  and  thinking  will  grow  upon  you.  You  will 
perceive  that  no  happiness  can  lie  in  the  direction  of  an 
unvaried  program  of  self-serving,  that  you  will  not  ex 
tend  the  range  of  your  ideals  that  way  or  get  an  inkling 
of  the  divine. 

If  you  have  had  the  patience  to  read  thus  far,  you 
may  say,  "Why,  I  have  no  time  for  such  nonsense.  The 
woman  does  not  know  what  she  says". 

Then,  I  will  recall  to  you  the  life  of  Joseph,  how  his 
123 


ILLUSIONS  AND   DISILLUSIONS 

brethren  seeing  him  approaching  from  the  distance,  said 
in  a  tone  of  contempt,  "Behold,  this  dreamer  cometh. 
Let  us  slay  him  and  cast  him  into  some  pit  and  see  what 
will  become  of  his  dreams".  When  they  could  not  slay 
him  they  sold  him  into  slavery.  Little  did  they  suspect 
then  that  the  day  was  to  come  when  they  would  stand 
before  him,  their  peer,  that  he  in  his  generosity  would 
forgive  them  and  entertain  them  royally. 

This  experience  of  looking  up  at  the  sky,  and  seeing 
things  brighter  and  clearer  and  better,  is  just  as  real  an 
experience  as  eating  or  drinking.  It  gives  you  an  in 
creased  sense  of  the  largeness  and  richness  of  life.  It 
brings  you  a  deliverance  beyond  your  dreams. 


124 


ROSES  AND  THE  LIFE  OF  MAN 

ACH  morn  a  thousand  roses  brings"  sang 
Omar  as  he  looked  out  upon  a  Persian  gar 
den.  When  we  come  to  think  of  it,  what 
would  this  world  be  without  its  roses?  Roses 
have  been  loved  by  every  generation  since  the  beginning 
of  time.  The  ancients  wove  them  into  chaplets  and  used 
them  at  every  festival  and  sacrifice.  Long  before  the 
moderns  tuned  their  lyres  to  sing  of  the  beauty  and 
fragrance  of  roses,  their  loveliness  was  being  celebrated 
in  Persia,  Arabia,  Greece  and  Rome.  The  Greeks  and 
the  Romans  so  loved  the  rose  that  it  was  associated  with 
every  important  event  in  their  lives,  from  the  cradle  to 
the  grave.  The  Egyptians  once  sent  a  whole  shipload 
of  roses  to  a  Roman  emperor  in  the  belief  that  they 
would  make  the  most  acceptable  tribute  they  could  offer. 
At  Roman  banquets  the  walls  were  hung  with  garlands 
of  roses,  and  every  attendant  wore  them.  Wealthy 
Roman  aristocrats  emulated  the  example  of  emperors 
by  having  their  homes  adorned  with  fresh  roses  every 
morning  during  the  season.  We  get  our  familiar  ex- 
pression,  "a  bed  of  roses",  from  those  Roman  sybarites 
who  had  their  beds  filled  with  roses  instead  of  feathers 
or  down.  Since  that  time,  the  bed  of  roses  has  been 
synonymous  with  comfort,  happiness  and  luxury.  Not 
only  were  roses  used  by  the  aristocrats — they  were  loved 
and  used  by  the  people.  The  same  girl  who  is  making 
her  living  as  a  stenographer  today,  made  it  in  the  time 
of  the  Roman  empire  by  making  garlands  of  roses  which 
had  a  ready  sale.  Just  as  we  send  flowers  to  the  dead, 

125 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

so  did  the  ancients  pile  them  upon  the  catafalque.  Roses 
were  considered  so  necessary  for  the  commemoration  of 
the  departed  that  those  who  were  too  poor  to  purchase 
roses  to  put  on  the  graves  of  their  beloved  would  place 
a  request  over  the  tomb,  asking  the  wealthy  passerby  to 
bestow  upon  it  the  gift  of  a  flower.  Many  wealthy  per 
sons  would  make  bequests  to  charitable  institutions,  pro 
viding  that  an  offering  of  roses  be  made  annually  in 
memory  of  the  testators. 

For  centuries  the  rose  has  been  the  symbol  of  victory 
and  the  conquering  hero  has  been  decorated  with  roses 
upon  his  return  from  victorious  wars.  When  the  first 
American  troops  marched  through  the  streets  of  Paris 
they  walked  over  a  carpet  of  roses,  strewn  in  their  way 
by  the  French  who  were  almost  delirious  with  joy  over 
the  coming  of  "les  Americains".  Those  same  heroes 
returning  to  America,  were  showered  once  more  with 
rosebuds,  by  their  mothers,  wives,  sisters,  sweethearts 
and  admiring  friends. 

Here  is  something  all  men  know,  though  they  some 
times  forget  it — that  in  cultivating  flowers  and  growing 
trees,  they  cultivate  themselves.  Man  cannot  work 
without  thinking,  and  when  he  works  among  roses,  he 
must  perceive  that  he  is,  indeed,  a  part  of  nature,  and 
that  if  he  is  to  achieve  happiness  or  success,  he  must 
co-operate  with  her.  If  the  corner  grocery  infidel  would 
quit  whittling  and  talking  long  enough  to  cultivate  a 
rose  garden,  he  might  in  that  garden  discover  the  unity 
and  oneness  of  nature  and  the  mastership  which  controls 
and  regulates  all.  For  the  man  of  nature  who  has  seen 
God  in  the  burning  bush  of  ripening  autumn,  and  who 
realizes  that  the  same  divinity  is  made  manifest  in  the 

126 


ROSES   AND   THE  LIFE  OP   MAN 

delicately  flushed  petal  of  the  rose,  senses  his  kinship 
with  flowers,  trees,  vine  and  shrubbery  and  for  that 
reason,  he  better  understands  his  mission  in  the  world. 
It  is  good  for  us  impecunious  strugglers  with  the 
dragging  weariness  of  the  world  upon  us  to  walk  once  in 
a  while  in  a  rose  garden  and  to  be  made  to  feel  there 
that  we  should  take  off  our  shoes,  that  being  holy  ground. 
Grosser  materialists  we  would  be  if  it  were  not  for 
nature,  the  truest  of  idealists  and  the  greatest  of  poets. 
Once  we  get  away  from  the  city  street,  with  its  stone 
and  iron,  she  speaks  to  the  imagination  and  creates  in 
us  the  very  feelings  the  material  world  seeks  to  destroy. 
In  such  moments  we  come  to  know  that  it  is  nature's 
blue  skies,  her  green  trees  and  fields  and  her  gardens  of 
roses  that  in  the  feverish  rush  of  life  keep  us  reasonably 
sane. 


127 


WHAT  A  TEACHER  CAN  DO 

ONT  you  make  a  plea  to  the  school  teachers 
to  instruct  their  pupils  in  kindness,  polite 
ness  and  gentle  speech  ? ' '  mothers  have  asked 
me  again  and  again.  Sometimes  we  wonder 
if  teachers  realize  what  a  tremendous  influence  they 
exert  over  their  pupils,  if  they  understand  what  a  force 
they  are  for  molding  the  lives  of  boys  and  girls. 

Almost  six  hours  a  day,  the  best  and  most  alert  hours 
of  a  child's  life  are  spent  in  the  school-room,  under  the 
control  and  influence  of  a  teacher.  After  a  child  has 
reached  the  school  age;  the  mother  has  not  much  more 
opportunity  to  influence  her  children  than  has  the 
teacher.  And  the  very  fact  that  the  school  influence  is 
away  from  and  outside  the  home  renders  it  the  more 
profound. 

As  I  look  back  over  my  life,  I  realize  that  I  was 
profoundly  affected  by  three  or  four  teachers  to  whom 
I  went  to  school.  This,  it  seems  to  me  is  significant — 
that  the  teachers  I  recall  vividly  and  those  who  perma 
nently  influenced  my  thinking,  were  those  women  who 
continually  filled  me  with  the  desire  to  be  as  fine  as  they 
were  themselves.  All  the  rest  remain  a  blank  to  me — 
I  could  not  even  recall  their  names.  I  believe  that  this 
is  true  of  most  persons.  The  good  is  a  living  memory 
with  us.  The  bad,  unless  it  is  very  bad,  and  the  indif 
ferent,  pass  from  our  minds. 

When  a  teacher  builds  character  while  she  is  drilling 
children  in  the  rudiments  of  writing  and  geography  and 
arithmetic  and  spelling,  she  renders  a  service  for  which 

128 


WHAT    A   TEACHER    CAN    DC 

no  money  can  pay.  The  teacher  who  holds  up  before  her 
pupils  an  example  of  politeness,  kindness,  honesty,  fair 
ness  and  justice  is  performing  a  service  that  will  not 
only  affect  the  lives  of  these  children,  but  all  the  lives 
that  in  any  way  touch  theirs.  For  what  does  it  profit 
us  if  we  receive  a  one-sided  education,  if  the  mind  is 
cultivated  to  the  neglect  of  the  heart?  What  does  it 
matter  if  we  assimilate  all  the  learning  of  all  the  ages, 
and  have  not  fine  dispositions  and  characters?  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  a  keen,  well-trained  and  highly  educated 
mind  with  no  character  or  conscience  to  balance  it,  is  the 
most  dangerous  of  all  forces  in  the  world.  It  can  work 
more  havoc  than  100  ignorant  criminals. 

The  very  children  who  have  not  been  inspired  to  great 
reverence  for  their  parents  will  look  up  to  a  teacher  and 
try  to  imitate  her  if  she  be  a  woman  of  refinement  and 
beautiful  character.  This  is  particularly  true  of  boys 
who  easily  form  a  semi-romantic  attachment  for  a 
teacher,  especially  if  she  is  a  woman  of  personal  charm. 
Little  girls,  too,  sensitive  and  impressionable  as  they  are, 
are  deeply  affected  by  the  atmosphere  of  the  school-room 
and  either  blight  or  blossom  in  it.  A  strident-voiced, 
bad-tempered,  coarse-natured  woman  in  the  school-room 
is  just  as  great  a  moral  menace  to  the  children  as  a 
woman  of  fine  nature  and  cultivated  manners  is  uplift 
ing  and  inspiring  to  those  under  her  care. 

This  much  must  be  said  about  the  obligation  of  the 
teacher  to  exercise  a  noble  influence  over,  her  pupils — 
no  teacher,  however  gifted  can  entirely  overcome  the  in 
fluence  of  a  bad  and  shiftless  home.  The  time  to  begin 
teaching  children  the  golden  rule  and.  good  manners  is 
in  their  babyhood.  If  a  mother  neglects  her  children  for 

129 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

six  years,  she  must  not  expect  that  the  school  teacher 
shall  undo  all  the  damage  she  has  done.  The  tendency 
of  woman  to  shift  to  the  school-room  the  responsibilities 
and  duties  they  should  be  assuming  is  entirely  too  prev 
alent.  Too  many  mothers  are  expecting  the  school 
teacher  to  train  their  children  in  manners  and  morals 
simply  because  they  are  too  lazy  to  undertake  that  task. 
This  is  the  perfect  combination — the  mother  teaching 
her  children  kindness,  politeness,  fairness  and  honesty, 
and  the  teacher  carrying  along  and  amplifying  that  in 
struction — refinement  and  character  in  the  home  envi 
ronment,  and  the  same  things  in  the  school. 


130 


GRAY  HAIRS  AND  OPPORTUNITY 

HIS  is  a  young  man's  world — that  much  is 
plain",  declared  a  man  just  past  middle  age, 
with  an  air  of  profound  discouragement. 
''The  good  places  all  go  to  the  young  folk, 
and  only  the  left-overs  fall  to  men  of  my  years". 

There  is  no  more  pathetic  sight  in  this  world  than 
gray-haired  men  and  women  going  about  in  search  of 
suitable  positions  and  becoming  more  and  more  dis 
couraged  as  they  are  turned  away,  or  are  given  in 
ferior  jobs. 

When  one  of  these  discouraged  men  comes  to  you  for 
advice,  it  is  very  easy  from  the  vantage  point  of  your 
own  competence  to  tell  him  to  brace  up,  that  if  he  wants 
to  land  a  good  job  he  must  look  prosperous  and  cheer 
ful,  that  he  must  carry  himself  with  an  air  of  confidence, 
and  though  he  be  rejected  again  and  again  he  must  not 
permit  himself  to  become  discouraged,  that  he  must  go 
right  on  in  the  assurance  that  he  is  destined  to  the  reali 
zation  of  his  best  hopes. 

It  is  not  so  easy,  however,  for  your  patient  to  take 
this  advice.  It  is  not  easy  to  be  enthusiastic  when  you 
have  been  turned  down  repeatedly.  It  is  anything  but 
easy  to  look  cheerful  when  money  is  growing  scarcer 
and  scarcer,  and  prospects  are  by  no  means  bright. 

Added  to  the  difficulties  of  the  spirit  are  those  of  the 
flesh.  Men  do  not  obtain  a  hearing  readily  when  they 
have  passed  their  prime.  The  world  of  business  is  in 
terested  in  young  men  and  their  possibilities.  The  em 
ployer  knows  that  a  young  man  is  more  pliable  than  an 

131 


ILLUSIONS   AND    DISILLUSIONS 

old  one,  that  he  is  quicker  and  more  energetic,  more 
capable  of  assimilating  new  ideas.  He  also  knows  that 
an  old  man  feels  like  taking  life  more  easily,  that  he  is 
not  so  willing  to  brave  physical  hardships  or  to  endure 
exposure,  and  that  he  will  feel  the  effects  of  intense  effort 
much  sooner  than  the  young. 

In  the  face  of  these  conditions,  what  can  an  old  man 
do?  First,  he  must  create  an  illusion  of  youth.  If  his 
hair  be  white,  he  should  keep  it  cropped  closely.  A 
shaggy  white  head  suggests  that  the  possessor  has  seen 
his  best  days.  A  few  days  growth  of  stubby  white  beard, 
too,  will  add  years  to  his  appearance.  It  is  sheer  mad 
ness  for  the  older  man,  looking  for  a  job,  to  permit  even 
his  best  friend  to  see  him  with  a  day's  growth  of  beard 
on  his  face.  If  he  has  never  formed  the  habit  of  good- 
grooming,  it  will  not  be  an  easy  task  for  him,  when  he 
has  passed  middle-life  and  he  is  lacking  the  stimulus  of 
success.  Yet,  forming  that  habit  may  be  a  matter  of 
life  or  death  to  him,  just  a  case  of  sink  or  swim.  Un 
kempt  hair,  unclean  clothing,  sagging  shoulders  and  a 
slouching  gait  will  kill  any  man's  chance  of  employment. 
No  employer  wants  to  be  greeted  with  signs  of  decrepti- 
tude,  and  if  he  happens  to  be  a  young  man  himself,  he 
will  be  even  more  impatient  with  the  appearance  of  old 
age.  One  day  I  saw  a  man  in  financial  difficulty,  wear 
ing  a  coat,  threefourths  of  the  hem  of  which  was  ripped 
out  and  hanging.  While  that  man  may  not  have  been 
able  to  buy  a  new  suit,  he  could  have  had  the  hem  sewed 
back,  if  he  had  to  do  it  himself.  He  could  have  had  his 
frayed  cuffs  turned  in,  though  he  were  obliged  to  be 
his  own  tailor. 

After  a  man  has  looked  well  to  his  outward  appear- 

132 


GRAY    HAIRS   AND   OPPORTUNITY 

» ance,  he  must  turn  his  attention  to  his  mental  attitude. 
He  must  realize  that  he  will  stand  a  very  poor  chance  of 
landing  a  good  position  if  when  he  is  about  to  apply  for 
it,  he  says  to  himself,  ' '  I  really  do  not  expect  to  get  this 
position — it's  bound  to  go  to  a  younger  man.  About  all 
I  can  do  is  to  ask  for  it,  and  run  the  chance  that  it  will 
fall  my  way".  For  a  flabby  purpose  will  "buy"  him 
nothing.  He  dare  not  sag  mentally  or  physically.  He 
must  appear  fresh,  aggressive,  self-sufficient.  If  they 
have  quite  died,  he  must  rekindle  the  fires  of  ambition. 
He  must  have  the  courage  to  say  to  himself,  as  I  heard 
one  of  these  more  than  middle-aged  men  in  search  of  a 
job,  declare,  "Nothing  can  keep  me  down". 

With  all  that  we  have  learned  within  the  last  25  years 
about  living  longer  and  keeping  younger,  we  have  a  long 
way  to  go.  The  ancients  must  have  known  much  more 
about  it  than  we  do,  for  Adam  lived  950  years,  Enoch 
365  years,  Lamech  777  years  and  Jared  962  years. 

What  is  wrong  with  our  system  that  we  lost  our  pep 
and  fire  and  ambition  just  at  that  point  in  life  when  we 
begin  to  feel  that  we  have  learned  how  to  live? 


BUSINESS  WOMEN  FOR  WIVES 

BUSINESS  man  who  employs  many  young 
women  and  who  is  not  so  busy  counting  his 
profits  that  he  has  no  time  to  think  of  the 
future  welfare  and  happiness  of  the  women  in 
his  employ,  tries  to  impress  upon  them  this  fact  which 
is  obvious  to  him — the  more  efficient  a  woman  is  in  the 
handling  of  her  work,  the  higher  type  of  man  she  at 
tracts  and  the  better  are  her  chances  for  making  a  good 
marriage. 

"Every  few  weeks  one  of  my  girls  leaves  my  service 
to  take  a  life  job",  he  said  to  me.  "I  am  very  much 
interested  in  their  marrying  well  and  happily.  Close  ob 
servation  over  a  long  period  of  years  has  convinced  me 
that  the  more  skillful  a  girl  is  at  her  work,  the  higher 
type  of  man  she  is  likely  to  marry,  while  the  girl  who 
is  careless  and  slip-shod  about  her  work  usually  attracts 
a  man  of  like  caliber. 

Every  normal  woman  wants  to  marry,  and  she  wants 
to  make  the  best  marriage  that  she  can.  Therefore,  the 
far-seeing  woman  of  business  strives  to  attain  the  high 
est  possible  efficiency  in  her  work,  not  only  for  the  pur 
pose  of  making  her  services  indispensable  to  her  em 
ployer,  not  only  for  the  reason  that  increased  efficiency 
means  a  bigger  pay  envelope  and  consequently,  a  greater 
degree  of  comfort,  security  and  pleasure  for  herself,  but 
with  the  idea  of  making  herself  both  attractive  and  in 
teresting  to  the  better  class  of  men  with  whom  she  be 
comes  acquainted  in  her  business  life. 

A  man's  opportunity  for  sounding  a  woman's  char- 

134 


BUSINESS  WOMEN   FOR   WIVES 

acter  and  disposition  and  for  observing  her  ability  is 
ten  times  greater  in  business  than  in  social  life.  The 
woman  in  society  appears  only  on  occasions  and  then 
usually  on  dress  parade.  She  is  in  a  position  always  to 
put  her  best  foot  forward,  and  she  has  leisure  to  prepare 
herself  to  present  an  excellent  appearance.  She  is  not, 
like  the  business  woman,  under  fire,  all  of  the  time.  She 
does  not  have  to  stand  the  test  of  the  very  early  morning 
hours  when  few  of  us  are  at  our  best.  Neither  is  she 
betrayed  by  a  daily  endurance  run,  and  the  wear  and 
tear  upon  her  good  looks  and  her  disposition  as  a  hard 
working  day  comes  to  its  close. 

For  the  very  reason  that  the  business  woman  is  bound 
to  become  known  for  what  she  is  by  her  men  associates, 
it  behooves  her  to  remember  that  insofar  as  she  makes 
good  in  business,  men  who  come  to  know  her  naturally 
will  reach  the  conclusion  that  she  could  also  make  good 
in  home  life.  The  business  woman  who  is  faithful  to 
her  work,  who  is  not  continually  asking  for  half-holidays 
and  extra  hours  off  is  not  likely  when  she  marries,  to 
gad  about  aimlessly  at  the  expense  of  her  home-life.  The 
business  woman  who  is  accurate,  neat  and  painstaking 
at  her  work  probably  will  keep  a  neat,  clean,  well-ordered 
home.  If  she  is  conscientious  about  her  work  and  ever 
watchful  to  promote  the  interest  of  her  employers,  the 
chances  are  that  she  will  be  equally  conscientious  as  a 
wife,  and  that  she  will  take  a  lively  interest  in  the  suc 
cess  and  progress  of  her  husband.  If  she  is  invariably 
courteous  to  men  and  women  who  call  upon  her  em 
ployer,  always  trying  to  serve  them  in  his  absence,  you 
may  depend  upon  it,  she  will  cultivate  her  husband's 
friends  and  entertain  them  cheerfully.  The  business 

136 


ILLUSIONS  AND  DISILLUSIONS 

woman  who  does  not  buy  more  than  she  can  afford  and 
who  is  prompt  in  the  payment  of  her  debts  does  not 
easily  develop  into  the  wife  who  continually  nags  her 
husband  for  more  spending  money  than  he  properly  can 
give  her,  nor  will  she  run  him  into  debt.  When  a  busi 
ness  woman  keeps  sweet  in  spite  of  the  numerous  and 
sundry  irritations  that  arise  in  business,  and  does  not 
lose  her  poise  under  ordinary  provocation,  she  is  not 
likely  to  fly  into  a  tantrum  every  time  her  husband  hap 
pens  to  differ  from  her  in  opinion  or  fails  to  put  in  his 
appearance  for  dinner  at  the  appointed  hour.  The 
woman  who  by  her  conduct  and  the  quality  of  her  work 
wins  and  holds  the  respect  of  her  employer,  year  in  and 
year  out,  is  pretty  sure  to  keep  the  respect  of  her  hus 
band  for  a  life-time.  Also,  the  woman  who  manifests  a 
steady  pride  in  her  appearance,  and  who  invariably  is 
immaculately  neat  and  clean  in  store  or  office  will  not 
fall  readily  into  the  kimono  habit  after  marriage,  OP 
neglect  her  hair,  her  skin,  her  hands  and  finger  nails 
when  she  has  retired  to  the  comparative  seclusion  of  her 
own  home. 

Since  business  has  become  Cupid's  first  lieutenant  and 
more  marriages  are  made  every  year  through  association 
in  the  store,  office  and  counting  room  than  through  ac 
quaintances  in  the  ball  room,  the  drawing  room  and  on 
the  golf  course,  every  woman  of  marriageable  age  who 
has  a  pay  envelope  would  do  well  to  remember  that  as 
she  qualifies  for  success  in  her  business  career,  so  is  she 
likely  to  be  judged  as  to  her  fitness  for  wifehood. 


136 


MEN  "FORGETTING"  TO  PROPOSE 

HERE  is  a  little  story,  but  a  deeply  human  story 
that  has  been  written  thousands  of  times.  It 
is  the  old,  familiar  story  of  the  man  who  makes 
ardent  love  to  a  girl,  who  flatters  and  cajoles 
her,  who  says  everything  a  lover  can  say  excepting  a 
proposal  of  marriage,  and  who  while  protesting  his  de 
votion  with  singular  bravery,  suddenly  becomes  timid 
when  it  comes  to  signing  his  name  to  a  love  letter. 

Many  a  young  girl  deludes  herself  with  the  strange 
idea  that  the  man  who  has  the  courage  to  declare  his  love 
is  such  a  modest,  shrinking  violet  that  he  cannot  possibly 
have  the  hardihood  to  ask  her  to  become  his  wife. 
Strangely  enough,  it  does  not  occur  to  her  that  the  man 
who  possesses  the  prowess  to  tell  her  that  she  is  the  most 
charming  of  creatures,  that  she  is  the  only  girl  he  ever 
loved,  that  he  does  not  know  how  he  is  to  go  on  without 
her,  that  he  thinks  of  her  in  every  waking  hour,  that  his 
love  for  her  is  like  some  rare  and  holy  flame,  might  also 
perform  the  heroic  feat  of  asking  her  to  marry  him,  if 
that  is  what  he  really  wants. 

I  am  one  who  never  could  put  much  faith  in  that 
diverting  story  of  Miles  Standish  who  was  so  timid  that 
he  commissioned  John  Alden  to  propose  for  him  to  the 
fair  Priscilla.  It  is  one  of  those  pretty  fictions  that  have 
little  to  do  with  real  life.  It  is  not  masculine  to  be 
timid.  I  cannot  believe  there  is  one  man  worthy  of  the 
name  who  fails  in  courage  when  he  wants  to  declare  him 
self.  It  is  a  pretty  safe  rule  to  follow,  that  if  a  man 
has  not  enough  spirit  to  propose  marriage  to  the  girl  he 

137 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

loves,  he  won't  have  enough  spirit  to  take  good  care  of 
her  after  he  gets  her.  He  is  a  weakling  and  she  cannot 
make  anything  else  of  him.  If  all  of  the  young  and  in 
experienced  women  could  be  convinced  of  the  truth  of 
this  statement,  there  would  be  far  fewer  tragedies  in  the 
form  of  broken  hearts  and  ruined  lives. 

The  very  generosity  of  woman's  nature  beguiles  her 
into  misunderstanding  and  mistake.  She  imagines  that 
the  man,  poor  thing,  needs  to  be  courted,  that  he  is  suf 
fering  for  a  little  encouragement  from  her.  I'll  never 
forget  the  pathetic  appeal  of  a  postal  card  note  written 
by  a  trusting  girl  to  a  man  who  doubtless  had  quite  for 
gotten  her  in  the  light  of  another's  beaming  eyes.  "It 
has  been  so  long ' ',  she  wrote,  ' '  since  I  have  heard  a  word 
from  you  that  I  have  made  up  my  mind  you  must  be 
sick".  Nothing  is  more  difficult  for  the  girl-heart  to 
grasp  than  the  cruel  possibility  of  her  having  been  sup 
planted  in  the  affections  of  a  man  to  whom  she  has 
given  her  heart.  She  can  imagine  a  thousand  ills  and 
evils  that  may  have  overtaken  him.  The  last  thing  that 
she  can  believe  is  that  he  never  really  cared  for  her  and 
that  the  minute  she  was  out  of  his  sight,  he  quite  forgot 
her.  One  time  in  a  thousand  the  man  will  have  been 
sick,  or  for  some  other  legitimate  reason,  unable  to  com 
municate  with  his  sweetheart,  but  in  the  other  999  cases, 
it  will  have  been  a  matter  of  sheer  indifference. 

Despite  the  fact  that  women  are  fast  achieving  polit 
ical  and  industrial  equality,  men  are  still  the  lords  of 
this  world.  The  man  who  loves  is  not  afraid  to  tell  it, 
and  the  man  who  wants  to  marry  will  somehow  summon 
the  courage  to  say  that,  too. 

Here  is  something  for  girls  to  remember — no  man  fails 

138 


MEN  'FORGETTING     TO  PROPOSE 

to  sign  his  name  to  a  love  letter  because  of  forgetfulness. 
There  is  something  distinctly  mean  and  small  and  sneak 
ing  about  the  unsigned  love  letter,  and  it  deserves  the 
same  consideration  that  should  be  accorded  the  anony 
mous  letter  of  attack.  There  is  just  one  fitting  place  for 
it  and  that  is  the  waste  basket.  The  writer  of  the  un 
signed  love  letter  is  the  same  brand  of  coward  as  the 
writer  of  the  unsigned  letter  of  abuse  or  attack. 

Girls — don't  waste  your  precious  sympathy  upon  the 
man  who  says  everything  but  the  one  thing  that  you  are 
waiting  for  him  to  say.  Many  a  sweet  young  girl  has 
gone  to  her  doom  because  she  took  that  one  thing  for 
granted,  because  she  believed  that  the  man  honestly  loved 
her  though  he  failed  to  propose. 

The  only  thing  that  makes  a  man  too  diffident  to  pro 
pose  to  a  girl  who  is  attractive  and  interesting  to  him  is 
his  unwillingness  to  assume  the  care  of  a  wife  and  pos 
sible  family.  No  man  who  truly  loves  lacks  the  courage 
to  tell  it,  and  no  man  who  wants  to  make  a  woman  his 
wife  will  hesitate  long  before  breaking  the  news  to  her. 


139 


POETET  IN  LIFE'S  PROSE 

HE  impossible  has  happened.  There  has  been 
one  man  in  the  world  who  found  "a  perfect 
wife".  This  is  what  he  said  of  her  in  his  last 
will  and  testament:  "I  want  to  say  to  the 
world  that  my  wife,  in  my  estimation,  is  the  most  perfect 
woman  I  ever  saw,  heard  or  knew  of.  She  is  endowed 
with  marvelous  courage,  a  very  strong  will,  and  an  in 
tensely  high  ideal  of  honor.  Her  love  has  never  at  any 
time  diminished,  but  has  grown  always  until  I  feel  that 
it  has  reached  the  point  that  can  reasonably  be  consid 
ered  the  acme  of  perfect  love.  I  am  the  richest  of  men 
in  that  I  am  blest  with  the  truest,  the  most  honorable 
and  loving  wife  in  the  world". 

This  exquisite  tribute  to  a  wife  was  set  down  in  the 
will  of  the  late  Major  Charles  O.  Baird  of  the  413th 
Signal  Corps  battalion,  who  as  the  directing  head  of  all 
the  telephone  and  telegraph  lines  used  by  the  American 
expeditionary  forces  in  France  worked  under  such  high 
pressure  that  he  died  of  heart  lesion. 

To  the  newspaper  reporters  who  besieged  Mrs.  Baird 
in  her  little  home  in  the  borough  of  Queens,  New  York, 
she  asked  smilingly,  "Is  it  so  strange  for  a  man  to  love 
his  wife  and  then  say  as  much?" 

It  is  stranger  than  it  ought  to  be.  Eeal  love  between 
man  and  woman  should  be  the  accustomed  thing,  not 
a  nine  days'  wonder. 

If  it  transpires  that  a  marriage  is  a  failure,  the  world 
usually  assumes  that  it  was  a  woman's  fault.  It  was 
refreshing  to  hear  the  mother  of  sons  say  a  few  days  ago 

140 


POETRY    IN   LIFE  S   PROSE 

that  a  good  husband  usually  makes  a  good  wife  unless 
the  girl  is  of  very  unpromising  material.  She  declared 
that  the  majority  of  women  change  far  less  than  men 
after  they  are  married,  that  a  girl  is  just  what  she  is, 
whether  she  be  single  or  married.  Most  men,  on  the 
contrary,  she  asserted,  put  their  best  foot  forward  until 
after  they  are  married,  when  they  unblushingly  display 
their  true  natures. 

When  asked  how  she  had  won  and  held  the  love  of  her 
husband,  "the  perfect  wife"  answered  that  she  "was 
trying  all  the  time  to  do  those  things  that  made  my 
loved  one  happy". 

How  many  men  or  women  put  forth  a  conscious  effort 
all  the  time  to  make  their  loved  ones  happy  ?  How  many 
form  the  habit  of  taking  their  loved  ones  for  granted  ?  A 
thousand  things  claim  their  time,  attention,  energy  and 
thoughts.  In  the  midst  of  a  busy  life,  it  is  so  easy  to  drift 
along  on  the  tide  of  events,  assuming  that  those  with 
whom  we  live  in  close  relation  are  well  enough  satisfied. 
Men  and  women,  at  least  most  of  them,  do  not  mean  to  be 
thoughtless  or  neglectful.  They  simply  fail  to  under 
stand  what  claims  love  makes  upon  others  and  what  they 
want  it  to  mean. 

Women  are  keen  judges  of  "the  little  things  that 
count".  And  why  should  they  not  be?  The  world  is 
made  up  of  ant-hills  rather  than  mountains.  Life  is  the 
sum  total  of  a  great  many  small  acts  and  occurrences, 
varied  occasionally  by  big  events.  Women  are  much 
more  discerning  and  fastidious  about  what  men  call  mere 
trifles  than  the  latter  usually  suspect. 

Women  are  expected  to  be  eternally  on  the  alert  to 
keep  their  husband's  love.  You  read  in  all  of  the 

141 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

advice-to-women  columns  in  the  newspapers  and  maga 
zines  that  the  wife  must  present  a  neat  and  attractive 
appearance  before  her  husband.  Why  should  this  rule 
be  one-sided?  Why  should  there  not  be  columns  writ 
ten  to  men  about  "How  to  Keep  Your  Wife's  Love?" 
There  is  many  a  husband  who,  by  his  personal  careless 
ness,  makes  himself  just  as  distasteful  to  his  wife  as  she 
is  to  him  when  she  goes  about  in  a  faded  kimono  and 
curl  papers.  It  takes  two  to  hold  up  the  tone  of  a  fam 
ily  and  renew  the  honeymoon  from  the  first  bridal  day 
to  the  golden  wedding. 

Before  marriage,  the  man  assumes  that  the  woman  at 
his  side  is  unable  to  step  up  the  curbstone  without  his 
gallant  assistance.  After  marriage  she  may  toil  up 
flights  of  stairs  and  carry  heavy  burdens.  It  may  seem 
like  a  little  thing  for  a  husband  to  offer  to  carry  the 
baby  upstairs  at  night,  but  it  is  a  little  lift  that  will 
touch  the  heart  of  almost  any  wife.  Most  husbands  are 
very  courteous  to  their  wives  in  public.  They  help  them 
in  taking  off  or  putting  on  their  wraps.  They  step  back 
and  permit  their  wives  to  pass  through  a  door  ahead. 
It  is  in  the  privacy  of  home  that  a  husband's  courtesy  is 
put  to  the  real  test.  If  it  be  a  veneer,  he  will  save  it  for 
public  exhibition.  If  it  be  genuine,  it  is  something 
that,  in  the  essentials,  he  never  will  forget  to  observe. 

There  are  times  when  a  wife  is  as  hungry  for  demon 
strations  of  love  as  is  a  little  child.  A  woman  is  a 
woman  whether  she  lives  in  a  log  cabin  or  in  a  stone 
mansion.  Her  nature  craves  little  attentions,  compli 
ments  and  courtesies.  If  men  understood  this  need  of 
the  feminine  nature,  this  heart  hunger  of  a  wife  for  the 
expressed  approval  of  her  husband,  they  would  say  and 

142 


POETRY   IN    LIFE  S   PROSB 

do  a  great  many  more  little  things  for  their  wives  that 
they  ordinarily  do  not  so  much  as  think  about.  Just  a 
little  word  of  appreciation  for  the  wife's  new  blouse, 
for  the  hat  she  has  so  cleverly  trimmed  that  she  might 
help  her  husband  save,  the  delicious  dish  she  has  pre 
pared  for  dinner,  the  rearrangement  of  the  furniture  in 
a  room,  and  a  dozen  other  things  women  do  to  make  their 
married  life  and  their  homes  as  successful  as  they  can. 

Why  should  the  little  courtesies  and  compliments  and 
appreciations  that  make  a  woman  happy  be  discarded 
after  marriage?  Why  in  the  midst  of  the  prose  of 
every-day  living  should  husband  fmd  wife  forget  all  the 
poetry  ? 

Perfect  love  would  not  be  so  rare  a  phenomenon  if 
more  husbands  and  wives,  like  Major  and  Mrs.  Baird, 
"tried  all  the  time  to  do  those  things  which  make  the 
loved  one  happy". 


INSIGNIA  OF  A  LADY 

|  HAT  is  the  first  thing  you  notice  about  a  soldier 
in  uniform  ?  Is  it  not  the  insignia  he  wears  on 
his  coat?  Do  you  not  look  for  those  signs 
which  indicate  whether  he  is  in  the  infantry 
or  the  artillery,  whether  he  is  a  lieutenant,  a  captain,  a 
brigadier  or  major  general,  or  just  a  doughboy?  Do 
you  not  also  look  for  those  gold  stripes  on  his  arm  which 
indicate  that  he  has  seen  service  overseas? 

Now,  the  soldier  is  not  the  only  person  in  this  world 
who  wears  insignia.  Nor  is  the  only  kind  of  insignia 
that  of  army  or  navy. 

Every  woman  displays  certain  insignia,  though  she 
may  be  quite  unaware  of  that  fact.  What  are  the  in 
signia  we  expect  to  see  displayed  by  a  woman?  Are 
they  not  those  of  a  lady? 

What  are  the  insignia  of  a  lady? 

Her  dress,  her  manner  and  her  speech. 

Whenever  you  see  a  woman  wearing  the  insignia  of  a 
lady,  she  does  not  do  so  by  attracting  attention  to  her 
costume,  unless  it  be  by  its  simple  beauty,  its  elegance 
and  that  quality  we  call  good  taste.  The  very  moment 
you  look  at  a  lady,  you  realize  that  she  is  in  harmony 
with  her  surroundings;  that  she  is  wearing  that  which 
suits  her,  and  that  it  is  the  right  thing  for  the  time  and 
place.  You  say  to  yourself,  "She  looks  like  a  lady".  She 
has  that  something  about  every  detail  of  her  toilette 
which  suggests  refinement  and  gentility.  It  is  an  art 
to  dress  "like  a  lady",  but  it  is  one  that  every  woman, 

144 


INSIGNIA   OF   A  LADY 

regardless  of  her  opportunities  or  condition,  can  acquire 
if  she  tries. 

What  of  the  insignia  of  manner? 

In  a  word,  courtesy,  expressed  by  unfailing  kindness 
and  thoughtfulness  of  others. 

The  woman  who  displays  the  insignia  of  a  lady  by  her 
manner  never  talks  loud  in  the  street.  'She  is  quiet,  like 
wise,  at  public  entertainments.  No  woman  wearing  the 
insignia  of  a  lady  will  talk  while  an  artist  is  singing  or 
playing,  or  while  a  speaker  is  on  his  feet.  She  does  not 
turn  around  when  there  is  some  disturbance  at  the  rear 
of  the  room,  nor  does  she  stare  as  others  enter  or  make 
remarks  about  them.  If  she  goes  into  the  house  of  God, 
she  enters  into  the  form  of  worship  unostentatiously,  and 
she  does  not  scribble  in  prayer  or  hymn  book  or  mutilate 
either  one.  She  makes  room  if  she  can  for  others  as  they 
enter,  nor  does  she  stubbornly  cling  to  the  aisle  seat. 

The  woman  wearing  the  insignia  of  a  lady  does  not 
rudely, push  ahead  of  others  when  entering  a  public 
conveyance.  If  a  man  is  so  gallant  as  to  give  her  his 
seat,  she  murmurs  a  pleasant  "thank  you".  She  will 
offer  her  seat  to  an  elderly  woman  or  to  one  carrying  a 
baby.  She  is  courteous  to  all  salesmen  and  saleswomen 
and  she  does  not  forget  to  speak  to  them  a  courteous 
word  of  appreciation  when  she  has  been  well  served.  She 
is  invariably  polite  in  talking  over  the  telephone,  and 
she  knows  that  "Central's"  trying  task  is  rendered  no 
easier  by  the  men  and  women  who  "bawl  her  out".  She 
stands  in  the  presence  of  older  persons  and  she  lets  an 
older  woman  or  a  guest  precede  her  through  the  door. 
She  is  as  courteous  to  the  members  of  her  own  family  as 
she  is  to  acquaintances  and  friends.  And  no  matter 

145 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

what  may  be  her  heartaches,  she  tries  to  radiate  cheer 
fulness. 

Invariably  you  can  detect  a  woman 's  rank  by  her  voice 
and  manner  of  speech.  An  exquisite  voice  and  manner 
of  speaking  are  more  engaging  than  beauty.  In  fact, 
nothing  gives  one  so  severe  a  shock  as  to  hear  harsh, 
strident  tones  or  vulgar,  low  words  issuing  from  the 
lips  of  a  beautiful  woman.  Slang,  unless  it  be  used  with 
great  nicety  and  discrimination,  creates  an  unpleasant 
impression.  As  for  loud  laughter,  it  is  but  "the  noisy 
testimony  of  the  joy  of  the  mob".  In  conversation,  it  is 
well  to  talk  often,  but  not  to  talk  long,  so  that  if  you 
fail  to  please,  at  least,  you  will  not  tire  your  hearer. 

Harmonious  and  appropriate  dress,  invariable  kind 
ness  and  courteous  manners,  a  well-modulated  voice  and 
pure  diction — these  are  the  insignia  of  a  lady.  And 
she  who  displays  them  will  be  recognized  as  a  lady 
whether  she  be  in  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York  or  in  the 
roughest  frontier  town  in  the  whole  country. 


146 


AFTER  COLLEGE— WHAT? 

VERY  year  thousands  of  young  girls  come  out 
of  finishing  schools  and  colleges,  wondering 
what  they  will  do.  next.  They  have  a  vague 
sense  of  wanting  to  justify  the  time  they 
have  given  to  their  schooling  since  they  left  high 
school  and  the  money  that  has  been  spent  upon  them, 
both  to  their  families  and  to  their  communities.  Every 
conscientious  graduate  is  eager  to  make  her  educa 
tion  function,  and  to  make  its  value  visible  to.  the 
home-folk  and  her  friends. 

What  happens  to  the  girl  graduate  who  emerges  from 
finishing  school  or  college,  supplied  with  a  lot  of  new 
theories  which  she  feels  that  she  must  somehow  put  into 
use? 

If  she  belongs  to  a  prosperous  family,  she  will  be  ex 
pected  to  fit  back  into  the  family  circle  and  the  com 
munity's  social  life.  If  she  must  go  to  work,  nine  times 
out  of  ten,  she  has  been  permitted  to  come  out  of  col 
lege  with  nothing  definite  and  tangible  to  offer  to  an 
exacting  business  world  which  in  turn  has  nothing  to 
offer  her  in  the  way  of  a  position  that  will  harmonize 
with  her  ambitions  and  ideals. 

If  she  belongs  to  the  first  class,  what  can  she  do? 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  does  not  know  what  to  do 
except  to  follow  the  lead  of  her  parents.  Her  father, 
who  would  have  been  utterly  disgusted  with  a  son  that 
refused  to  prepare  himself  for  a  chosen  vocation,  has 
repeatedly  discouraged  his  daughter  from  taking  so 
practical  a  course.  He  argues  that  after  she  has  been 

147 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

away  at  college  for  four  years,  he  and  her  mother  want 
to  have  her  at  home  with  them,  which  is  quite  the  natural 
feeling  for  parents.  He  tells  her  that  he  has  plenty  of 
money,  and  that  she  never  will  have  to  earn  her  own 
way.  "It  is  so  delightful  for  your  parents  to  have  you 
with  them",  the  family  friends  say  to  her.  She  feels 
that  she  does  owe  something  in  the  way  of  personal 
gratification,  after  all  they  have  done  for  her.  How 
many  girls  are  proof  against  arguments  of  parental  af 
fection  and  the  lure  of  a  social  career  ?  If,  indeed,  they 
were  so,  would  we  not  love  them  less? 

Let  us  suppose,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  girl  grad 
uate  decides  that  the  wisest  course  she  can  pursue  to 
save  herself  from  boredom,  if  she  does  not  like  society, 
or  to  secure  an  income  of  her  own,  is  to  enter  the  business 
world. 

But,  what  is  the  first  thing  she  asks  of  the  business 
world?  Nine  times  out  of  ten  you  will  hear  her  say, 
"Oh,  I  want  to  do  something  interesting".  What  does 
that  mean?  It  means  that  she  is  not  nearly  so  anxious 
to  undertake  a  work  that  will  be  genuinely  useful  and 
constructive  as  something  that  will  win  instant  applause 
from  the  crowd.  She  wants  a  task  in  which  she  can  "ex 
press  herself",  one  in  which  she  can  make  "her  per 
sonality  felt".  It  is  then  she  finds  herself  confronted 
with  a  barrier — the  business  world  is  looking  for  gen 
uinely  useful  women  who  will  work  for  their  work's 
sake,  not  for  women  whose  dominant  idea  is  to  exploit 
themselves. 

"Since  the  home  seems  to  be  passing",  said  a  mother, 
"it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  train  one's  daughters  to  be 
wives  and  homemakers,  and  yet,  if  they  are  in  no  im- 

148 


AFTER   COLLEGE WHAT? 

mediate  necessity  of  making  their  own  living,  it  does 
not  seem  quite  the  thing  to  fit  them  for  business  or  pro 
fessional  life." 

In  the  history  of  the  world  there  never  has  been  an 
era  so  trying  to  young  women,  who  cannot  know  whether 
they  are  destined  to  be  wives  and  mothers  or  women  of 
the  workaday  world.  Suppose  a  girl  prefers  the  career 
of  a  wife  and  homemaker,  and  suppose  she  prepares  her 
self  for  that.  Society  can  offer  her  no  guarantee  that  she 
will  marry.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  suppose  she  is  edu 
cated  for  a  profession  at  her  own  request;  then  to  her 
own  amazement  and  that  of  her  friends,  she  may  fall  in 
love  and  marry  following  her  graduation,  when  she  is 
not  much  better  prepared  to  take  up  homelife  than  her 
domestically  inclined  sister  was  equipped  for  a  commer 
cial  career. 

Countless  young  girls  of  the  well-to-do  class  are  left 
to  drift  when  they  come  out  of  school.  Forgetting  that 
they  are  vital  young  creatures  with  the  right  to  some 
thing  more  satisfying  than  a  life  of  pleasure,  "we  wonder 
why  they  become  reckless  and  offend  Mrs.  Grundy. 

For  the  present  there  appears  to  be  only  one  fair  way 
to  meet  this  problem — I  do  not  assume  to  solve  it.  That 
way  is  to  train  thoroughly  every  girl  for  some  gainful 
occupation,  and  to  permit  her  to  follow  that  if  she  has 
the  will  to  do  so.  In  that  event,  she  will  not  be  tor 
mented  with  the  demon  of  futility,  nor  will  she  feel 
that  she  must  apologize  to  her  family  and  to  society  if 
she  does  not  marry  straightway. 


140 


THE  CHEERFUL  HUSBAND 

F  I  should  ever  marry  again,  I  hope  that  I  will 
be  so  fortunate  as  to  get  a  jolly  man  for  a 
husband",  said  a  young  widow  who  had  di 
vorced  a  chronic  grouch.  "There  is  nothing 
more  depressing  than  the  companionship  of  a  man  who 
is  eternally  in  a  bad  humor.  During  the  first  years  of 
my  married  life,  I  used  to  spend  hours  trying  to  think 
up  interesting  topics  of  conversation,  and  gathering  up 
cheerful  little  stories  to  tell  my  husband,  alwaj^s  in  the 
hope  that  I  could  break  through  his  gloom." 

Ill-humor  is  the  most  contemptible  of  faults  because 
there  is  no  excuse  for  it.  The  man  who  cultivates  a 
sullen  temper  is  the  most  selfish  of  all  human  creatures. 
He  tears  down  everybody  with  whom  he  comes  in  con 
tact  and  his  very  presence  distills  a  poison  that  blights 
his  associates.  Many  a  wife  who  looks  60  at  the  age  of 
40  has  aged  prematurely  because  all  during  her  married 
life  she  has  had  to  bear  with  a  husband's  ugly  disposi 
tion,  his  carping  criticisms,  and  scowls  and  snarling 
comments. 

Occasionally  there  is  a  man  who  thinks  it  is  "smart" 
to  make  his  wife  afraid  of  him  and  who  with  more  or 
less  regularity  stages  a  tantrum  in  order  to  keep  her 
"toeing  the  mark".  He  may  be  a  "good  provider". 
He  may  not  be  otherwise  brutal.  But  for  all  the  fear 
and  uncertainty  and  anguish  he  causes  her,  he  almost 
might  as  well  be  an  out-and-out  villian — so  much  suffer 
ing  does  he  cause. 

I  care  not  how  talent«d  a  man  is,  if  he  says  to  himself. 
150 


THE   CHEERFUL   HUSBAND 

"This  world  is  my  natural  enemy,  and  I  must  keep  an 
eye  on  it ;  I  am  going  to  watch  my  wife  to  see  that  she 
does  not  betray  me;  I  have  no  faith  in  friendship  or 
human  kindness;  nevertheless  I  am  going  to  realize  my 
ambitions  and  get  what  I  want"  is  swimming  against 
the  current  of  the  universe.  His  distrust  of  others  breeds 
distrust  in  them,  and  his  hardness  arouses  their  sus 
picions.  With  every  step  he  takes  he  puts  a  handicap  on 
his  efforts,  and  however  great  his  material  success,  he 
will  never  get  the  fullest  enjoyment  of  it.  How  differ 
ent  is  the  life  of  the  man  who  says:  "This  world  and 
our  life  in  it  is  just  about  what  we  make  it.  Friendship 
gravitates  toward  those  who  deserve  it  and  love  is 
returned  a  thousand  fold".  Good  flows  to  that  man  on 
every  current,  and  a  thousand  unseen  forces  are  set  in 
motion  to  carry  him  onward  to  his  goal. 

Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox  once  said  that  she  wished  a  pro 
fessor  or  preceptress  of  optimism  might  be  introduced 
into  every  school  in  the  world.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
science  of  loving  humanity  is  more  important  than 
higher  mathematics,  and  the  fine  art  of  keeping  cheer 
ful  is  more  useful  than  a  knowledge  of  a  dozen  foreign 
languages. 

In  order  to  protect  ourselves  from  other  peoples' 
glooms  and  ill-humor,  we  ought  not  to  take  their  rude 
ness  or  complaining  as  personal  to  ourselves.  We  ought 
to  realize  that  men  and  women's  grouches  usually  are 
attributable  to  one  of  two  causes,  ill-health  or  lack  of 
wholesome  training.  On  the  other  hand,  we  should  ac 
cept  the  kindness  of  people  and  their  efforts  to  rise  above 
their  troubles  as  much  for  our  benefit  as  their  own  sakes. 
as  personal  favors. 

151 


ILLUSIONS   AND    DISILLUSIONS 

I  have  noticed  this — that  well-bred  persons  are  seldom 
complainers.  There  is  a  streak  of  commonness  in  peo 
ple  who  are  persistently  gloomy,  grouchy  or  sullen,  who 
cannot  make  themselves  or  anybody  else  happy,  who  are 
eternally  suspicious  of  others,  and  who  always  can  find 
something  to  fuss  or  fret  about.  One  of  the  truest  evi 
dences  of  aristocracy  is  a  courageous  bearing  through 
the  ups  and  downs  of  every-day  life. 

Let  no  husband  delude  himself  with  the  notion  that  he 
appears  deep,  profound  or  inscrutable  when  he  main 
tains  a  sullen  silence,  and  when  he  habitually  opens  his 
lips  only  to  criticise.  Men  of  the  highest  wisdom  make 
a  practice  of  maintaining  a  cheerful  spirit  and  of  seeing 
the  best,  not  the  worst  in  their  fellow-men. 


MARRIAGE  AND  THE  MARGIN  OF  AGE 

|OW  much  difference  should  there  be  in  the  ages 
of  men  and  women  who  marry?  Is  happy 
marriage  possible  between  a  man  of  mature 
years  and  a  very  young  woman?  Can  an 
older  woman  and  a  very  young  man  find  permanent  sat- 
f action  in  each  other?  Does  a  margin  of  two  to  five 
years  promise  the  ideal  basis  for  a  successful  union  ?  Or, 
is  a  difference  of  ten  years  more  favorable  to  sustained 
happiness  ? 

From  five  to  ten  years  is  probably  the  safest  margin 
of  difference  between  the  ages  of  husband  and  wife.  As 
she  grows  older  the  average  woman  does  not  preserve 
the  semblance  of  youth  so  well  as  her  husband,  unless 
she  happens  to  be  one  of  those  fortunate  persons  who 
can  take  the  utmost  care  of  herself.  When  married 
couples  reach  the  meridian  of  life,  that  is,  between  40 
and  50  years  of  age,  the  husband  often  appears  the 
younger,  a  situation  that  is  bound  to  inspire  chagrin 
in  the  wife,  who  nine  times  out  of  ten,  comes  to  fear  that 
her  spouse  may  be  attracted  to  a  more  youthful  form 
and  face. 

The  successful  man  of  business  is  often  a  miracle  of 
freshness,  youth  and  good  looks  until  he  is  60  years  of 
age,  for  the  man  who  has  brains  enough  to  make  a  suc 
cess  of  his  work  has  brains  enough  to  not  worry  over 
conditions  he  cannot  help.  The  contrary  is  true  of  a 
good  many  women  who  seem  to  find  a  voluptuous  pleas 
ure  in  making  themselves  unhappy,  in  fretting  over  de 
tails  and  fussing  over  a  thousand  petty  things  which 

153 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

are  quite  immaterial  and  irrelevant  to  the  real  business 
of  life. 

There  is  something  bordering  on  both  the  ridiculous 
and  the  pathetic  in  those  instances  of  abnormal  love 
where  a  woman  of  40  or  50  falls  desperately  in  love  with 
a  man  many  years  her  junior.  In  almost  every  case 
the  passion  that  unites  masculine  May  with  feminine 
December  is  inspired  by  a  woman  of  extraordinary 
brains,  beauty  or  strength  of  character.  The  young 
man  is  dazzled  by  the  mistress  of  a  thousand  subtleties. 
He  is  fascinated  by  her  ability  to  bring  out  the  best  that 
is  within  him.  Older  women  who  have  this  faculty  for 
attracting  young  men  know  how  to  make  the  shyest 
youth  shine  with  an  effulgent  glory.  They  have  an  in 
sinuating  way  of  uncovering  in  a  young  and  inexperi 
enced  man  such  depths  as  he  did  not  before  suspect  in 
himself. 

As  men  grow  older  their  general  tendency  is  toward 
specialization.  The  tendency  of  the  ripening  woman, 
on  the  contrary,  is  toward  diversification.  The  more 
brilliant  the  woman,  the  wider  are  her  interests,  among 
which  may  be  society,  sports,  art,  literature,  politics  and 
travel.  She  establishes  a  thousand  points  of  contact  with 
people,  and  she  learns  a  thousand  ways  to  play  upon 
susceptible  human  nature.  This  fullness  of  knowledge 
often  renders  her  quite  irresistible  to  a  young  man,  pro 
vided  she  has  also  kept  a  certain  amount  of  physical 
exuberance  and  the  fine  faculty  for  making  friends  with 
time.  Women  are  usually  drawn  into  affairs  of  this 
unnatural  kind  in  the  hope  of  renewing  the  sensations  of 
their  youth ;  or  having  made  a  mercenary  or  disappoint 
ing  marriage  in  their  teens,  they  seek  in  a  second  and 

154 


MARRIAGE   AND   THE   MARGIN   OP   AGE 

later  union  to  experience  the  emotions  they  missed  in 
the  springtime  of  their  lives.  It  is  doubtful  if  the 
woman  of  45  or  50  who  is  contemplating  marriage  with 
a  younger  man  ever  hesitates  on  the  point  of  her  own 
disillusionment,  though  she  is  almost  sure  to  entertain  a 
fear  that  she  may  be  supplanted  later  in  his  affections 
by  a  woman  nearer  his  own  age.  But,  the  chances  are 
that  she  may  tire  of  her  youthful  lover  even  before  he 
has  exhausted  his  resources  of  affection  for  her. 

Disraeli 's  marriage  was  a  happy  exception  to  this  rule. 
Overwhelmingly  ambitious,  he  secured  through  his  wife 
not  only  the  money  to  consummate  his  ambitious,  but 
the  ripe  experience  and  the  steady  heart  and  hand  of 
a  thorough  woman  of  the  world.  Mrs.  Disraeli  adored 
her  "Dizzy"  as  she  called  him,  and  naturally  so,  for  no 
woman  could  have  failed  to  be  devoted  to  so  brilliant  and 
charming  a  personality  as  the  great  English  statesman. 

Unions  among  men  of  ripe  years  and  young  women 
stand  a  better  chance  of  happiness,  though  they  must 
violate  in  some  measure  that  natural  law  which  decrees 
that  youth  shall  call  to  youth.  Chauncey  M.  Depew,  the 
delightful  octogenarian,  and  his  younger  wife  seem  to 
have  realized  genuine  happiness  together.  Luther  Bur- 
bank  at  the  age  of  62  married  his  secretary  who  at  the 
time  was  30  years  old.  Where  a  young  woman  and  an 
older  man  are  in  accord  temperamentally,  it  may  be 
possible  for  them  to  achieve  a  fairly  happy  and  satis 
factory  marriage.  Any  abnormal  element  entering  into 
marriage,  however,  is  sure  to  be  prejudicial  to  the  ideal 
happiness,  for  May  naturally  loves  May,  and  December 
loves  December,  and  as  Kipling  would  say,  the  twain 
shall  never  meet. 

155 


GLORY  OF  THE  DINNER  HOUR 

REAKFAST  is  the  poetry  of  eating." 

"Strong  with  the  invigoration  of  sleep, 
still  animated  with  the  intimacies  of  soap 
and  water,  a  man  comes  to  his  breakfast 
like  a  boy.  A  boy  comes  down  like  winged  mercury 
and  takes  his  seat  as  if  alighted  on  a  heaven-kissing 
hill.  Breakfast  is  the  work  of  Lucifer,  Son  of  the 
Morning,  and  no  doubt  caused  the  arrogance  that 
wrought  his  fall.  Freshness  sits  at  your  right  hand, 
the  dust  of  the  day  has  not  settled  on  your  soul,  and 
you  meet  your  fellows  like  morning  stars  shining  at 
each  other.  'Good  morning.'  What  a  delightful 
greeting!  Did  a  'Good  evening'  ever  sound  so  musical 
as  'good  morning'  when  the  first  fragrance  of  coffee, 
muffins  and  honey  bursts  upon  the  anticipating  senses  ? 
Tripping  downstairs  is  almost  like  flying,  and  pulling 
out  one's  chair  gives  the  last  fillup  to.  the  appetite. 
Everything  is  welcome  and  welcoming." 

Who  but  a  man  could  have  such  sentiments?  Who 
but  a  man  could  approach  the  breakfast  table  feeling 
and  looking  like  a  morning  star?  No  female  of  the 
species  could  be  so  sentimental.  "Poetry  of  eating" — 
indeed.  Of  all  the  repasts  that  take  place  in  one  round 
of  the  clock,  none  is  so  songless,  so  lack-luster  as  break 
fast  which  is  the  very  prose  of  pasturage.  Luncheon 
is  only  a  shade  less  interesting,  coming  as  it  does  between 
the  morning's  effort  and  the  afternoon's  ennui  and 

156 


fatigue.  It  is  not  until  the  tea-hour  that  feminine  hu 
manity  begins  to  feel  salubrious,  for  tea  with  its  delight 
ful  tonic  quality  and  aromatic  fragrance  is  touched  with 
the  enchantment  of  the  closing  day. 

Breakfast  never  has  held  for  us  the  interest  that  it 
did  for  certain  Englishmen  during  the  last  century.  Be 
ing  workers  in  America,  devotees  of  the  strenuous  life, 
we  get  ourselves  out  of  bed,  dress,  drink  our  coffee  and 
hurry  away  to  business.  The  only  incident  of  the 
American  breakfast  is  the  American  newspaper,  taken 
without  comment. 

It  never  seems  to  have  occurred  to  us  to  copy  the  de 
lightful  breakfasts  that  were  given  by  Sidney  Smith. 
We  never  have  celebrated  such  morning  festivities  as 
Daniel  Webster  wrote  about  in  1839  when  he  met  at 
breakfast  in  London  "Boz",  Tom  Moore,  Wordsworth 
and  many  other  distinguished  Englishmen.  Men  do  not 
give  breakfasts  in  this  country,  and  when  women  hold 
them,  they  occur  at  12  o'clock. 

' '  The  wife  who  permits  her  husband  to  see  her  before 
the  luncheon  hour  does  so  at  her  peril",  declared  a  man 
who  is  wise  in  the  ways  of  this  world.  Fine  advice  for 
the  plutocracy,  but  doubtful  for  the  proletariat.  There 
is  a  large  modicum  of  truth  in  it,  however,  and  if  Bal 
zac  were  here  to  consult  about  it,  he  likely  would  char 
acterize  so  daring  a  woman  as  either  a  philosopher  or  a 
fool.  Women  are  not  at  their  best  at  breakfast.  Only 
children  and  men  get  up  with  the  freshness  of  the  morn 
ing  upon  them,  and  doubtless  there  would  be  fewer 
domestic  infelicities,  if  all  households  had  cooks  to  pre 
pare  breakfast  for  all  husbands,  and  wives  could  post- 

157 


ILLUSIONS   AND   DISILLUSIONS 

pone  their  appearance  until  a  kinder  hour  of  the  day. 

As  for  dinner — ah,  there  is  something  warm,  pagan, 
exotic  about  dinner,  when  woman  is  in  her  element. 

When  a  woman  goes  out  to  dinner  with  a  man  for  the 
first  time,  little  does  he  imagine  how  much  is  going  to 
depend  upon  the  way  that  dinner  goes  off.  If  he  studies 
the  menu  with  the  business-like  manner  that  he  would 
scan  the  day's  report  of  the  markets,  or  a  railroad  time- 
card,  it  bodes  ill  for  future  romance.  But  if  he  scans 
the  carte  de  jour  to  discover  some  delectable  dish  that 
will  tempt  the  illusive  appetite  of  his  divinity,  if  he  in 
sists  to  the  waiter  that  every  dish  shall  be  more  skill 
fully,  more  exquisitely  prepared  than  it  ever  was  pre 
pared  before,  she  is  made  secretly  happy.  One  course 
follows  another,  all  too  quickly  until  finally  they  sit 
over  their  coffee,  talking  about  the  only  thing  that  is 
worth  talking  about — love — until  the  waiter  brings  the 
bill.  Then,  if  he  glances  at  the  bill  nonchalantly,  and 
pays  it  like  a  prince,  even  though  he  be  not  very  wealthy, 
and  arising  from  the  table,  he  waves  aside  the  waiter  and 
himself  folds  his  Angelica  in  her  cloak,  she  is  suddenly 
caught. up  into  heaven  among  the  rosy  clouds  of  romantic 
love. 

But,  who  can  think  of  love  at  breakfast?  Who  feel^ 
like  pouring  out  a  libation  to  his  Gillian?  Who  could 
look  raptly  over  the  breakfast  table  into  his  Sylvia's 
blue  eyes?  Over  the  breakfast  table  there  falls  none  of 
the  gold  and  purple  radiance  which  shines  over  the  cere 
monial  of  dinner.  Breakfast  lacks  the  enchantments  of 
comradeship,  the  sense  of  romantic  adventure  shared 
which  one  may  feel  at  dinner.  At  breakfast  there  are  no 

158 


ILLUSIONS  AND  DISILLUSIONS 

divine  frivolities,  no  exquisite  coquettries;  there  is  no 
snatching  of  the  fearful  and  wonderful  joys  of  dinner, 
no  hint  of  that  mysterious  paradise  which  came  into  be 
ing  when  "male  and  female  created  He  them". 


159 


IMQft? 


PKIMTIOIN  U   S.A. 


•••••••••BMI 


PS3519  03941 6x  1-920 
Johnson,  Edith  Cherry,  1879- 


Illusions  and  disillusions. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


3  1210  00364  5247 


